


Something That I Want

by mischiefmanagedmate



Series: Kincaid Cinematic Universe [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, a gift for my younger self who loved Fred Weasley, quarantine induced madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 64,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanagedmate/pseuds/mischiefmanagedmate
Summary: Sophie Kincaid has a plan: pass her OWLs with flying colours; become a healer; and keep best friends Cho, Annabelle and Jemima in order.Sophie Kincaid has a problem. A few, actually. There's a Triwizard Tournament, fledgling business model and one Fred Weasley to contend with. The girl who likes to have everything planned out meets the boy who'll never grow up, and the big bad world is beckoning - are they ready for the reckoning?Part One of Three.
Relationships: Cho Chang/Cedric Diggory, Fred Weasley/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Kincaid Cinematic Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050251
Comments: 172
Kudos: 207





	1. A Girl With The Best Intentions

Quidditch gets boring. It’s all right to admit that. Even a Muggle girl raised in the middle of nowhere, once blown away by the idea that witches actually ride on broomsticks, can get desensitised pretty quickly. Quaffle; Snitch; Bludger - all in a day's work. But Sophie knew there was something special about this match. It wasn’t the fact that her best friends, Jemima and Annabelle, had reached fever-pitch excitement, arguing furiously over whether the old Bulgarian uniforms were more aerodynamic or the exact magical significance of the shamrock design on the Irish brooms (“well, _I_ read in _Witch Weekly_ ” – “oh, that _bastion_ of reporting!”). For them, every match day was equally sacred. Even ones with nosebleed seats and the players who looked more like pinpricks. But world-class Quidditch, with veela cheerleaders, mile-a-minute commentators and rules just complex enough to be more quaint than confusing? That was something she could get behind. Even if she needed binoculars to keep track.

“Absolutely criminal to not put O’Leary on as a starter –”

“No, the thing with O’Leary is, he has to warm up before he gets going, and there’s no time to waste –”

As Jem and Anna dissected the Irish line-up with all the expertise expected of impassioned Ravenclaw chasers, Sophie heard a dozen names bandied about that she didn’t recognise, before one she did.

“Merlin,” intoned Jem, with the kind of hushed reverence usually reserved for pop stars or minor saints. “Krum could knock me out cold with his broom and I would say thank you.”

“Which one’s he again?” teased Sophie, in her mock-Quidditch ditz act, earning her a distracted swat on the knee. Everyone knew who Krum was.

“If supporting Bulgaria is wrong,” said Annabelle, throwing several generations of Irish heritage down the drain for the scarlet-clad seeker, “then I don’t want to be right.”

There was an awful lot of stuff that had to happen before the match could start. She, Jem and Anna stood to attention for the Irish national anthem, screaming the words at the top of their lungs and earning dirty looks from the Bulgarian supporters around them. After they just about managed to hold back a particularly devoted fan from throwing himself down several hundred metres at the feet of the veelas, Sophie reckoned some refreshments were in order.

“Two Butterbeers,” said Jem, not even looking up from her pocketbook of Quidditch stats (which she’d been given as a joke last Christmas – Sophie hadn’t realised she would actually _use it_ ).

“Am I going by myself, then?” She knew the answer before the words had left her mouth. The queues for the drinks stand snaked well around the top level of the arena. Jem and Anna were hardly going to waste valuable minutes of soaking up _atmosphere_ and ogling the players.

“We love you,” Annabelle called distractedly as Sophie picked her way through the crowd. For all Sophie knew, she could have been talking to Krum.

Twenty-five minutes and a heated debate with the stand-owner later (there was no way three Butterbeers should cost upwards of a galleon, even taking into account World Cup price mark ups), she wandered about the top deck looking for their seats. Had they been in ‘G’ or ‘J’? As she racked her brains, she saw a blur of red hair crawling about rapidly, picking up scores of tiny jewel-coloured parcels. He leaned back on his heels when he saw her, like a particularly gangly dog.

“Have you seen any purple ones of these?” he asked, brandishing what looked like a boiled sweet with some feathery appendages. She shook her head and he scoffed. “Great. George is going to go mental.”

He didn’t sound too worried about that. Fred Weasley – she’d spotted the hair from a mile off – flashed her a quick smile as he shoved the sweet back into his pocket. “Oh, well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

“The Gryffindor motto,” she said with a laugh, regretting it as his eyes narrowed in confusion.

“You at Hogwarts, too?” he asked. She wished the ground would rise up a few hundred feet and swallow her up.

“Sophie. Sophie Kincaid. I’m the year below you,” she said quickly, as if the sooner the words were said, the sooner the awkwardness would dissipate. Fred gave a vague nod but she knew well enough that he didn’t recognise her. Fantastic.

“What are the sweets for?” she asked, more as a diversion than anything. But Fred’s face lit up. He tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

“That’s top-secret business, I’m afraid,” he said, before pulling out an array of differently coloured boiled sweets for her to admire. Despite some suspect red traces that clotted together like blood and the fact that one of them was warm to the touch, they seemed innocent enough.

“They’re just mock-ups at the moment. But come your sixth year –” and it didn’t escape her that he was kind enough to pretend the school question never came up – “if there are any classes you’re wanting to get out of, these’ll be your one-way ticket.”

“Like a Skiving Snackbox or something?”

Fred’s head snapped up to look at her like a man possessed, his grin broadening.

“That’s brilliant. We were going with Pick-and-Mix Tricks, but that’s so much better.” He pointed at the orange-dappled sweet oozing with red filling and asked her excitedly, “What would you call this one? Gives you a nosebleed.”

“Um…” She hardly noticed that the Butterbeers in her hands were getting warm and the crowds were roaring for someone or other. “Nosebleed Nugget? Wait. Nougat. Nosebleed Nougat.”

Fred let out a whoop of excitement, quickly lost in the passionate cheers of the Bulgarian crowds behind them. “ _You_ are an absolute _find_ , Kincaid,” he declared, stuffing the sweets back into his pockets. “What house did you say you were in, again?”

She hadn’t. “Ravenclaw.”

“Well, keep an eye out for us.” He was already slipping away to the stairwell, where the Irish spectators were getting more raucous by the second. “We’ll be in need of your services.”

And just like that, he rattled away down the stairs.

She handed the drinks to Jem and Annabelle, who were far too distracted by the excitement of the match to take note of how long she’d been, and tried to pay attention. But even when Krum caught the snitch and the crowds erupted around her, a small corner of her mind continued to race about something else entirely. Nosebleed Nougat. Sniffly Sherbet. Lolling Lollipops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is the first fan fiction I've ever had the guts to publish but I've been writing about the Harry Potter universe for longer than I can remember. This fic is a gift to my younger self, who was desperately in love with Fred Weasley and had to wade through some pretty dreadful writing to get her fix. I would really love feedback so please comment with any suggestions you may have!


	2. A Man Of His Own Invention

There were certain magical conventions that Sophie’s Muggle parents would never understand.

“What do they teach their children before eleven?” Louisa had asked, perfectly sensibly, the night before, and she hadn’t been able to come up with a good answer. From taking toads to school to no mandatory physical education on the curriculum, it was a world away from what they were used to. But by far the most off-putting of all was the idea of travelling by Floo powder. Michael Kincaid never trusted a man who wasn’t utterly devoted to a cross-country road trip, and even though Craig Castle, the remote Scottish estate where Sophie’s father had been brought up, was hundreds of miles from King’s Cross, he lived for the journey down to London the night before school began. They whiled away the hours with I-Spy – almost always something beginning with ‘c’ for car – and her mother’s extensive cassette collection of eighties pop. It was far and away the least time-efficient way to travel, and that was coming from someone who struggled to exceed twenty miles an hour on a broom, but Sophie looked forward to it every year. Even if she would come almost all of the way back up the next morning.

Their first September, Michael and Louisa had gaped at Platform 9 ¾, overawed by an enormous throng of people, owls and trolleys covering every inch of standing space. One visit to Diagon Alley and a brief visit from a tiny man with an excellent moustache who explained exactly why their daughter had such a proclivity for getting her own way had not prepared them for the madness that was magical back-to-school. But now, sending her off for her fifth year, they liked to think they were pretty dab hands at this whole witch business.

“ _Long_ letters,” her mother impressed upon her, wrapping her up in a hug. “ _Minimum_ double-sided. I didn’t get you that nice notepaper for nothing.”

“Can’t have you forgetting all about me,” said Sophie, her voice slightly strangled as Michael now stepped up to the plate and squeezed her tight.

“Don’t worry about us, chick,” he said with a wink. “Your mother and I are off to Portugal for a few weeks. We’ll barely notice you’re gone.”

They helped her lug her trunk onto the train, gave a few more eye-wateringly tight hugs and stepped back to join the other parents and siblings waving furiously.

“My mum loves this bit,” said Annabelle, immediately settling in for a nap up against the window. Where first years obsessed over their cauldrons and wands, Anna’s most valued possession was her neck pillow. “Makes her feel like a film star.”

If anyone got taken away with the glamour of a magical daughter, it was Henrietta Armstrong, currently waving a silk scarf in the air for all she was worth. A passionate but brief encounter with a man whose name she could never quite remember (“Declan? Donoghan?”) and who never once mentioned the word ‘wizard’ (“it’s like, what _did_ she know about him?”) had resulted in a child. Sophie and Jem leaned over their friend, who’d already pulled on her eye mask, to wave cheerfully at Henrietta, who beamed back, not seeming to mind in the least that her own daughter was sitting this one out. As the Hogwarts Express gave out a particularly loud puff of smoke, her face lit up with excitement.

“At least you have people to wave you off,” said Jem.

“Oh, shut up,” said Sophie, pinging her with a Chocolate Frog playing card (“ _so_ juvenile,” from under Annabelle’s eye mask, suggesting she was pretty wide awake under there). “You make it sound like you’re an orphan or something.”

“I might as well be, nine months out of the year.” Jem had only the rarest of missives from her parents during term time, since any owl who had to transport correspondence to and from Scotland and Singapore with any regularity would be undertaking a suicide mission. They loved their work as Aurors in the Far East too much to move from home but sent their daughter away to the school where they’d met ("sentimental buggers"). Whenever they were together, Jem and her parents got on like a house on fire (“which is _because_ we don’t see each other nine months out of the year”).

“Where’s Cho?” asked Anna behind the eye-mask.

“Prefect duty,” said Jem with a groan. “Can you imagine? I’d want to claw my eyes out five seconds in.”

“Which is why you’re not a prefect,” said Sophie, rolling her eyes. “Anna?” she called, flicking a playing card at her for good measure. “Chocolate Frog Tournament?”

For all her act of being the fifth-year sophisticate, Annabelle could never resist their September tradition. It had started in their first year, as pureblood Jemima realised her new friends had quite a lot of catching up to do with the wizarding world and decided to start them off with something easy.

“Go on, then.”

They decimated the trolley lady’s stock for all the frogs they could get their hands on.

“I feel sick,” moaned Jem, tucking into her seventh frog in about as many minutes.

“Got any Nicholas Flamels?” asked Sophie. Annabelle cracked a smile, the first proper one all morning. “Go fish.”

They went on like this for some time; once Jem decided they would just take the cards and dish out the discarded chocolate to the second years in the next-door compartment, who were only too pleased to help, they were going at quite a lick.

“I’m going to get more frogs,” said Sophie, crawling over Annabelle to get to the door. “ _Do not_ look at my cards when I’m gone.”

“I won’t!” cried Annabelle indignantly. “I haven’t done that since third year, _latest._ ”

“Whatever you say, cheater,” Sophie called over her shoulder. She spotted the trolley lady in the next carriage down and dug around in her robe pockets for change. Fumbling for Knuts amongst last year’s Hogsmeade receipts, she caught the end of her conversation.

“I’m sorry, Mr Weasley,” she was saying, trying to be firm, but Sophie could hear the smile in her voice. “All of my merchandise has to be Ministry-approved before it can go on sale.”

“Look, Cynthia – can I call you Cynthia?” This was Fred times ten, full charm-mode activated as he brandished a selection of the sweets Sophie had seen in July. “I completely understand your concerns. I’ve eaten enough rogue Bertie Botts’ Beans in my time to know you don’t want anything untested.”

Here he was encouraged by a gurgle of laughter and pressed on. “I wanted to get in early, give you some time to think about it before we get products rolling out properly. Cynthia, it’s inconceivable to us that the Skiving Snackbox should have any other start in life than here. On your fair trolley.”

“I’m sorry, dear, it’s completely out of the – oh,” said Cynthia with a start, spotting Sophie in the reflection of the glass. “Did you want something from the trolley, dear?”

“Kincaid,” said Fred triumphantly, making his way over to her in three paces. “Just the woman I wanted to see.”

“Could I have ten more frogs, please?”

Cynthia couldn’t get rid of them quickly enough, apologising profusely to Fred as she hurried along the corridor.

“That’s quite the diet you’re on.” Fred grinned, picking up one of her frogs and tossing it into the air. Something inside her threatened to go topsy-turvy, but she shoved it down.

“Well,” she retorted, regaining some of her composure, “I would have stocked up on some Nosebleed Nougat, but it looks like you struck out.”

“Ah, she doesn’t know what she’s missing,” said Fred carelessly. “I’ll have another crack before the journey’s up.”

“Any luck?” asked George, poking his head round the door of their compartment.

“We’ll get her next time,” Fred vowed, before asking Sophie, “I don’t suppose you’ve had any more name ideas?”

George’s eyebrows darted up into his hairline. “You’re Nosebleed Nougat Girl! Your reputation precedes you, my friend.”

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected their train compartment to look like – messy, probably, bright colours everywhere, the faint smell of something recently exploded. Instead, there were pages upon pages of what looked like manuscripts; scribbled diagrams with annotations in red, spreadsheets written in a meticulous hand. The twins looked at her hopefully, George poised with the pen, ready to go if she proved any good.

“I had an idea about Sniffly Sherbet?” she said, so tentatively it was almost a question. “It wouldn’t be a boiled sweet like the others, obviously –”

“Yeah, that could work.” Fred was the most contemplative she’d ever seen him, rifling through their sketches. “We’ll be wanting to expand the range after the first few months –”

“Imagine,” said George dreamily, “just as Binns launches into his first anecdote – whoosh! A quick snort of your sherbet –”

“And you’re sneezing all over the place,” Sophie finished. “Couldn’t possibly stay in class and spread those pathogens.” 

“It would be the height of bad manners.”

There was a pause. Not exactly uncomfortable, just enough to make her aware of herself again. Aware of things like the ten Chocolate Frogs still cradled in her hands and the fact that her arm was falling asleep from leaning against the doorframe. Something about the Weasley twins made you lose track of time, she was realising; made you feel like you were the only people around for miles.

She made her excuses to leave – an urgent Top Trumps tournament; the inevitability that Annabelle had stolen a look at her cards – and they quite understood.

“Oh – Puking Pastilles, as well.” She’d been quite proud of that one. “If you can minimise the actual vomiting.”

“You are the gift that keeps on giving,” Fred called as she rounded the corner.


	3. A Million Questions In The Dark

It had been quite the first evening back. Cho had returned from escorting the first years into their dormitories a little worse for wear, dealing with one little boy who wouldn’t stop wailing for his mother. Lured by the prospect of a night blasting The Weird Sisters and recounting all they could remember from Dumbledore’s speech, she’d left the boy for Marietta to sort out. Given that excitement in the Ravenclaw dormitories had never been so high, she'd just swapped one type of chaos for another.

“Viktor Krum! In _my school!_ ” Jemima was bouncing on her bed, too excited to sit still. Sophie and Cho threw various household objects at her to try and shut her up – a slipper, some parchment, (almost) Cho's alarm clock – but she wouldn’t be – couldn’t be – silenced. “We’ll be breathing the same air as the greatest Seeker alive.”

“You _already_ breathed the same air as him at the World Cup,” Sophie reminded her, rolling onto her back and staring at the canopy above her bed. Long ago, to make Divination quicker work, she’d charmed it to match the constellations outside, cloud cover being what it is in rural Scotland. Now she didn’t use it to fudge her constellation charts but to properly lose herself – to remember that there were bigger things than foreign wizarding schools and the legions of international Quidditch stars they brought with them. It made her think of growing up - looking outside at a blazing sky and realising the dark wasn't so scary after all.

“I like looking at the stars,” murmured Cho, flopping down on the mattress beside her. “I always feel like they’re trying to tell me something.”

“Like, ‘go to bed’”, said Sophie wistfully, before – “ _Anna!”_

Annabelle whipped back her towel that she’d been using to dry her hair as if nothing had ever happened. “How are you not more excited about this? Even _you_ know how good Krum is.”

“And he’ll be just as good in the morning,” Sophie shot back, burying herself under a pillow and yelping when Jemima piled on top of her.

“This is the single most exciting thing that has ever happened to this school,” she whispered gleefully, as if a wanted fugitive hadn’t been roaming their halls the year before. She starfished, kicking Cho in the ribs by accident. “Even your lack of enthusiasm cannot ruin this for me.” She gave her best friend a smack of a kiss on the head.

“Do you reckon Ced will enter the tournament?” Annabelle asked. Cho propped herself up on her elbows and considered.

“I think he’d be great,” she said diplomatically. “But I don’t know if I’d want him to.”

“We can’t have lover boy getting hurt,” said Jem, just as she was unceremoniously told to piss off and get into her own bed. Cho blushed at the nickname but didn’t say anything. They all knew how excited she was about Cedric. Their flirtation had been impossible to miss last year. The girls had spent three hours hyping her up in the dorm last summer before their first Hogsmeade date and since then, it had been smooth sailing. Sophie could see the appeal – she wasn’t blind. Cedric was smiley and nice to the younger students and good on a broom. There was something vaguely presidential about him; the kind of person who when they speak, you lean in to listen closer. But she couldn’t help but feel a little overawed around him, even now he was beginning to ingratiate himself into their group.

“There’s no harm in putting his name in,” Cho reasoned, though the tight braid she was making in her hair – always a tell-tale sign she was stressed – suggested otherwise. “It’s up to the cup to decide, really.”

The stars seemed to shine a little colder, a little more menacingly as Cho said those words. Sophie shook her head, trying to dislodge that particular thought. “He’d be up against some stiff competition,” she said to distract herself. “Durmstrang boys look like they eat Goblets of Fire for breakfast.”

“If one thing can make up for there being no Quidditch all year, it’s Durmstrang boys,” said Jemima, now safely seconded in her own bed.

“Or a Beauxbatons boy,” Annabelle chimed in. “I’m not picky.” Her green eyes swivelled to Sophie, who’d been conspicuously quiet on the subject of boys. “Anyone take your fancy, Soph?”

A blur of red. Manuscripts just messy enough to show passion and just ordered enough to show real intelligence. A smile which rivalled the sun. “No one in particular.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying! In case anyone's wondering, the chapter names are coming from songs which inspire the story. 'Something That I Want' is the song at the end of 'Tangled', which is exactly how I think of Fred and Sophie, and that gives the titles for the first two chapters. This title comes from 'Late Night Feelings' from Lykke Li, which is a song I used to blast with my best friends and always gives me girl gang energy.


	4. Making All My Days Count (Clowning With My Day Ones)

“Morning, all,” chirped Professor Sprout, pulling on her gnarled brown gloves (“it’s weird,” whispered Sophie to Cho, “she seems naked without them on. They’re like her second skin”).

“Welcome to your first Herbology lesson of fifth year. I know I don’t need to tell you what’s coming up –”

Regardless, she proceeded to explain at great length the topics they needed to cover before their OWLs in the summer term. Judging by the fluffy earmuffs balanced on their workbenches, today would be a return to mandrakes, but before long they’d be working with Chinese Chomping Cabbages and there would be a whole week devoted to the properties of Gillyweed. Sophie stared at her work bench dispassionately. Professor Sprout could talk about a mandrake as lovingly as if it were her own child, chiding it for screaming and tearing up when they became ‘all grown up’ and started moving into each other’s pots. She tried to summon up some of that sentimentality as she coaxed her mandrake out of his container.

“I think my mandrake is going through puberty,” said Cho, looking critically at the acne scars on the roots without so much as wincing at its screams.

If she was going to be a Healer, Sophie thought sternly to herself as she prodded her mandrake, she needed to pass Herbology with flying colours. It wasn’t that there was anything too difficult in copying out diagrams of roots and she could write an essay on the poisonous effects of belladonna with the best of them. But the thought of prescribing plant-based remedies for the rest of her days, though she was happy to learn about them in theory, didn’t give her the kind of thrill she thought a life calling ought to. Her mandrake stared at her insouciantly as she daydreamed, wondering why its shrieks weren’t enough to command her attention.

Sophie had never been totally sure what she wanted to do with her life. That life, of course, had been completely upended aged eleven, when everything she’d ever imagined her teenaged existence would be was suddenly obliterated. The summer after she left primary school, she could see all her classmates going off in one direction, with their dreams of being dolphin trainers, ballerinas, and other weird and wonderful things. But then when she’d joined Hogwarts, those childhood dreams didn’t feature in the imagination of her new friends. Jem had wanted to be an Auror since before she could walk, regaled with her parents’ mishaps in the field as her bedtime stories (she’d come to find tales of mortal peril oddly soothing). Annabelle was a born curse-breaker, with her passion for numbers and languages and keeping her distance from her mother. Even Cho had become dead set on teaching recently.

Healing had been something Sophie plucked as an anchor. She was good at all the subjects she’d need, she didn’t faint at the sight of blood, she’d quite liked _Holby City_ of an evening back home. Healing was safe, something she could focus on to guide her through gruelling exam years. Even beginning to think it might not be the path for her was like being unmoored.

But feeling unmoored, like there were no limits on what she could have or think, was part of what she loved about Ravenclaw; how she was encouraged to pursue every possible intellectual avenue, to find something that energised her and run with it. The most impassioned she’d felt about her future lately, she realised, was when she was coming up with product ideas. Letting her mind roam before seizing eagerly upon something and examining it from different angles in her head. She saw the products in such microscopic detail that she might as well have drawn up the sketches herself. She had drawn a few sketches, actually – terrible, shaky things that had to be explained by plenty of arrows, but they excited her.

“A quick summary diagram of the adult male mandrake for your portfolios by next lesson,” shouted Sprout over the bustle of students moving to their next class. “I know it’s boring, but it’s a check-box exercise.”

Jolted out of her reverie, Sophie stole a look at Cho’s careful notes before they were packed away, detailing the appearance of her mandrake and her recommendations for healing its unsightly blemishes. She tucked away her own notes – or lack thereof – in her bag. No one ever became a Healer by sitting around thinking about joke shops, she said sternly to herself. But they probably had an awful lot more fun.

“He’s eccentric.”

“He’s batshit, more like.” Jem took a loud bite of her apple to punctuate her statement. She and Anna had had Mad-Eye Moody for the first time that morning and were not entirely convinced that he was a real person. Sophie smiled fondly at her friends, gathered around one of the discussion tables in the common room that they’d co-opted for gossip and homework, in that order. Jemima started an excited rant about the discrepancies between _his_ account of ghouls and what her parents had picked up in the field in Singapore in the seventies. She was always more of a one for monologue than dialogue, and didn’t mind too much that Sophie glazed over when she retold the story of Harrison Liu versus the ghoul of Geylang.

“What are you drawing?”

Anna was pointing at her parchment. Sophie looked down, surprised to see that her absent-minded sketching had turned into the basic outline of a frisbee, adorned with vampiric fangs. “Shit. I was going to use that for Transfig.”

“Have some of mine,” said Jem, tearing off a piece of her parchment without drawing breath. She was speaking solely to Cho now, doing her best to interrupt with ‘really?’ and ‘no way!’ at the appropriate moments while writing a letter home.

“I like it,” said Anna, leaning in to see the details more closely. “Muggle summer on steroids.”

Sophie was used to her mind whirring on about things as a kind of white noise. She’d wake up in the middle of the night with an answer to a problem sheet she’d spent tortured hours over the week before and have to scribble something down before she could sleep again. But nothing seemed to consume her like these joke products. She shoved it inside her folder, avoiding Anna’s questioning gaze, and hurtling into Geylang in her mind’s eye. Jem had just got to the bit where her father entered the red-light district in hot pursuit of a ghoul causing trouble.

“You coming, Soph?”

She looked down at the three lines she’d managed in as many hours on the practical applications of the _inanimatus conjurus_ spell and shook her head at Cho. “I need to figure this out. Don’t wait up.”

Part of her liked working late into the night. Ravenclaw was filled with students who worked at all sorts of abnormal hours (there were a group of first years who’d taken to doing their homework in the early hours of the morning when they couldn’t sleep for homesickness) so Sophie wasn’t completely alone as she finally got into the flow of her essay.

The common room was a gorgeous place to work, set up for every situation. There were the discussion tables for group work and light relief, squishy sofas for those who liked to get their homework done without feeling like they’d left bed, and individual pods you could book in exam season for revision-induced hibernation. Watching over them, a sort of erudite fairy godmother, was the white marble statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, festively adorned this week in a Quidditch scarf and jersey for back-to-school, and lit up by a candelabra. There was something quasi-religious about it; more than a few students had found themselves murmuring frantic prayers to her as they raced to finish their work. She certainly felt a sort of zen calm come over her as she wrapped up the conclusion.

And then -

“Up late, Kincaid,” cautioned a voice, and she nearly jumped out of her skin as Fred Weasley plopped down in the seat beside her.

“Nice work,” said George, scanning her essay, doodling a Gryffindor lion in the margins that she’d have to erase later. “Enjoy Transfig while you still can. _Inanimatus conjurus_ is the beginning of the end.”

“Hi,” said the only member of the trio with a basic understanding of social decorum. “We’ve not really met before. Lee Jordan. You’ve got cracking windows in here.”

“Sophie Kincaid,” she said, hardly taking in how strange it was to be shaking hands with the Quidditch commentator at ten past twelve in the morning. “And thanks.”

The twins looked at her expectantly, brandishing stacks upon stacks of paper. “Um,” she said, suddenly aware of how dishevelled she must look, “how did you get in here?”

“Easy, really.” George began to rock his chair, instantly at home. “Anyone can answer a riddle.”

Sophie decided not to mention the agonised hours she’d spent locked out over the years, unable to think of what speaks without a mouth and hears without ears, has no body and yet comes alive with the wind (she still refused to accept that an ‘echo’ could hear).

“What did you say, then?” she asked. “Why _is_ a raven like a writing desk?”

“Because,” said Fred proudly, swinging his feet up onto the desk, “one is good for writing books –”

“And the other better for biting rooks,” finished Lee.

“That’s so much better than mine,” she moaned. ‘Both have quills dipped in ink’ seemed rubbish by comparison.

They clearly hadn’t come just to discuss Carrollian levity. George spread before her pages of sketches, some of which she’d caught glimpses of on the train the other day, but others too – meticulously drawn, accompanied with pages of research. There were even little mock-ups of the first series of Skiving Snackboxes.

“This is amazing,” she said, picking up each individual boiled sweet and admiring how they glowed in the light. Even the red streaks inside the Nosebleed Nougat looked inviting.

“We’re here to make you a proposition, Kincaid.” Fred lowered his voice so the few students still toiling away wouldn’t be overly distracted. “Georgie and I are in the very early stages –”

“Infancy,” George affirmed. “Almost pre-conception.”

“We are in the glint-in-the-milkman’s-eye stages of starting a business.” He slid over a logo design to her, surprisingly well-rendered. “We’re calling it Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “I like it. Catchy.”

“We thought you might say that. You’re a one for alliteration.” Here a list was placed in front of her, handwritten on the back of a World Cup programme. _Skiving Snackbox. Nosebleed Nougat. Sniffly Sherbet. Puking Pastilles._ She realised with a start that these were all of her product names – her ideas – that Fred must have been jotting down and adding to since the first moment they met.

“You’ve given us some of our best ideas so far,” he said, placing his hands behind his head. “I bet you’ve got more, too.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Sophie. It took only the quirk of Fred’s eyebrow for her illusion of modesty to shatter. “Okay. Lolling Lollipops. Make your head loll like you’re unconscious. There’s some kind of antidote if you chomp down on the stick, but that might need a friend to administer.”

Lee was grinning from ear-to-ear. “I see what you mean,” he said in an undertone to George, both of them eyeing Fred with interest. If Fred heard them, he decided to pretend he hadn’t.

“You come up with great ideas. Original. Not always actionable, but that’s where George and I come in.” She rifled through a detailed testing log of their earliest prototypes, replete with mugshots of Lee in less than favourable poses (the early Canary Creams had given him feathers in place of chest hairs), and some hypothetical cost analyses. The myth of the Weasley twins as lazy boys letting off steam couldn’t be further from the truth, she thought to herself, looking at weeks and weeks of hard work. She had to wrench herself away from details of refinement, figuring there’d be time to ask them questions later.

“We want you on board,” said George simply. “It’s not much of a team at the moment. Lee’s always our first test subject.”

“I lost quite a lot of blood in the Nougat tests.” Lee winced as he remembered. “But now I just eat a lot of spinach, keep my iron up.”

“I’m the brains,” George carried on. “Fred’s the brawn.”

Sophie laughed despite herself, colouring slightly when she snuck a look at Fred’s arms; years of practice pummelling bludgers apparently agreed with him.

“And we want you as a sort of marketing director,” said Fred. “Product designer. Whatever you want, really. Very much still glint and milkman.”

“We understand that you might want –”

“I’m in.”

George stopped midway through his sentence. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She was never usually this sure about anything. She triple-checked every piece of homework before she handed it in; she did extensive background research before she’d agreed to go away with the girls last summer; she’d even caught herself wondering whether she ought to change the way she knotted her tie. But something inside her seemed drawn to the Weasley twins, to whatever mischief they was up to. There was no doubt in her mind at almost twenty past midnight that this was what she wanted to do. “I’m up for it. Glint and milkman and all.”

George sighed in relief. “Thank Merlin. Now I don’t have to go into the cost analyses.”

“As if you have any idea what they mean,” said Lee, throwing a grape into his mouth.

Only Fred seemed slightly hesitant. “Are you sure? Not feeling coerced because we broke into your common room or anything?”

“It’s like you said,” Sophie reasoned, blowing strands of hair out of her eyes. “Anyone can get in here. Anyone who’s read _Alice in Wonderland._ ”

He looked at her blankly. Convinced this was part of a joke, she turned to George and Lee, but they were equally stumped. “You’re kidding,” she said, refusing to believe the world could be such a dark place. “You _do_ know _Alice in Wonderland_.”

“Is she in fourth year?”

She burst into peals of laughter. The melancholy first year homesickness-and-homework brigade looked at her with reproach in their eyes and she quietened down. Basic library etiquette still held in the early hours of the morning.

“You should read it. Muggle book. The Mad Hatter is a man after your own heart.”

“Sounds like a deal,” said Fred, extending a calloused and ink-stained hand towards her. “Welcome to the team, Kincaid.”

A pleasant kind of shock ran down her spine as their hands touched.

“See you in the morning, partner,” George called, narrowly avoiding the quill thrown at him by a particularly frustrated first year.

“Some of us are trying to _work!_ ” admonished the pip-squeak.

Fred grinned. “Rather you than me, mate.”


	5. My Feelings On Fire (Guess I'm A Bad Liar)

Once you’re out of it for a bit, you forget how hideously early school actually starts. During the holidays, Sophie was rarely out of bed before nine, something her father bemoaned. He’d normally been out for a run and had finished breakfast long before Sophie would deign to come downstairs. But at Hogwarts, it was six a.m. starts every weekday, soundtracked by Jem’s off-key singing in the shower. Saturday brunch had become a ritual for exactly this reason; a chance to gorge themselves on a full English and catch up on the week’s gossip, without worrying about hurtling off to Potions or the like. A month into term-time now, and Jem’s singing no more tuneful, Sophie needed brunch now more than ever.

“Just _looking_ at the two of you is giving me a cavity.”

Cho rolled her eyes and speared another sausage to avoid answering, barely breaking eye contact with Cedric. “Looking's not a crime.”

“The way _you’re_ looking at him should be,” said Anna archly, gesturing to the first years sat just down the bench from them. “Some prefect you are. Mentally undressing Cedric Diggory in plain sight. Get a hold of yourself, woman.”

“I am doing nothing of the sort,” said Cho firmly, but her eyes slid back to Cedric almost immediately. She’d been sweet on him since fourth year, after they’d played opposite each other in a Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff friendly and he accidentally sent her to the hospital wing (“flipping Wronski Feint”). He’d showed up with flowers and sat by her bed, winning Cho’s heart in approximately twenty minutes. He seemed in no danger of losing her favour, even when he tried to pay for their tickets to _GoldenEye_ at the cinema in her town in sickles last summer.

“Whatever sexy telepathy you’re doing, it’s worked,” said Jem, guzzling down the last of her black pudding and scooping up the remains of Sophie’s as Cedric approached their table, leaving a few dazzled third years in his wake.

“Hi, guys,” he said pleasantly, hands in his pockets, effortlessly calm. “You going into Hogsmeade this afternoon?”

Jem started to babble excitedly about stocking up on Honeyduke’s merchandise before she was given a swift kick under the table. “We’ve got a ton of work to do, haven’t we, Jem?” said Anna brightly.

“I’m snowed under,” Sophie agreed. “We’ve got mountains of Herbology.”

“No, we don’t –” Cho began, cut off by Sophie’s pinch on her forearm. She trailed off mid-sentence, settling for nodding vaguely instead.

“Cho’s free, though, aren’t you?”

Cho had by this point gone scarlet from head to toe and spoke more to her plate of baked beans than to Cedric when she said, “Yeah. I’m free.”

Cedric grinned broadly, hardly hoodwinked. “What a coincidence.”

Between the long pauses where they just looked at each other with stupid smiles on their faces and seemed to have lost the ability to speak, it took a whole three minutes for Cedric to ask Cho to one of the Hogsmeade pubs, by which point Anna, unnoticed, had stolen the last chipolata off Cho’s plate.

“I’ll meet you by the gates,” he said finally, grin broadening as he approached his group of mates, clearly keen to know what had transpired.

“That was sickening,” said Jem simply, chomping down on her fourth bacon sandwich.

Sophie swatted her on the knee. “Shush, you. Cho’s going on a date with Cedric!”

It was like being back in primary school. There was a roar of approval from the seventh years at the Hufflepuff table and the dull thud of Cedric being slapped on the back. Her best friend smiled shyly, ducking behind her curtain of thick dark hair. “I’ve been on dates with Cedric.”

“Not like this, you haven’t.” Sophie launched into an elaborate fantasy, just around the corner that afternoon, which saw them hit the streets of Hogsmeade before a Celestina Warbuck concert (Cho’s guilty pleasure). The night was rounded off with a moonlit row on the Black Lake where Cedric duelled with the Giant Squid for her affections. She was doing what she did best – storytelling – and she had Cho shrieking with laughter, when –

“Blimey, Kincaid,” came a voice from below (he _had_ to stop doing that). “Didn’t take you for such a voyeur.”

She span round to face Fred Weasley, crouching at the table like a particularly mischievous cat on the hunt for scraps. Cho, uncertain how clear it was that she had been the perpetrator of this imaginary voyeurism, took a large gulp of her orange juice.

“I’m here on urgent business –” though nothing looked further from the truth – “but if you’re saying to get your attention, I have to fight a squid, then I’ll go get my flippers.”

“Oh, shut it,” she said wearily. Without even looking, she knew Cho’s eyes were bugging out of her head. “What do you want?”

“Lovely to see you, too, Weasley,” said Jem, delighting in inserting herself into other people’s conversations. “Would you care to sit or are you enjoying being trampled?”

Jemima and Annabelle knew the twins well from years narrowly avoiding their bludgers on the pitch and commiserating in the hospital wing when things went south. Come to think of it, Sophie could remember more than a few occasions when she’d run into one twin or the other on her way to visit whichever friend had fractured their wrist this time. In her head, her relationship with the boys occupied a totally different sphere of her life. But she was beginning to realise that her circles could – in this case, already did – intersect.

Fred acknowledged Jem with a gracious bow of his head but stayed rocking on his heels. “You know the rules, Liu. Not meant to sit at other house’s tables.”

“You’re such a stickler for the rules, after all,” murmured Anna. Fred mimed being struck by the arrow of her cruel words.

Exasperated, Sophie hauled him up to a kneeling position. “Urgent business?”

“Right,” said Fred, suddenly professional, though it was hard to take him seriously with that smear of jam on his nose. “Zonko came through. He’s about this afternoon. Semi brainstorm session, semi negotiation. Can you make it?”

“Yep,” said Sophie firmly, trying but failing to drown out Cho’s mocking, “ _I’m snowed under”,_ the lie she’d spun so blatantly to Cedric only minutes before. Fred didn’t seem to notice either way, too busy avoiding being trodden on by the departing first years behind him.

“Wicked. We’ll meet you back here at three, alright?” He’d already leapt to his feet and snaffled the last piece of toast from their sharing plate. “Bring ideas!” he cried, snatching the butter knife from Anna’s place setting.

Sophie left it as long as she possibly could before she turned round to face her friends.

“Sophie Kincaid,” said Jem with great drama, a huge grin spreading over her face. “If that even is your real name.”

“Shut it,” Sophie retorted, trying to distract her by gifting her the last rasher of bacon. But the girls would not be stopped.

“So and Cho, Fred and Ced,” said Anna in a nursery-rhyme lilt. “It’s like a storybook.”

“They can move in next to each other,” suggested Jem with a happy sigh, “and raise their children side by side.”

Sophie buried her head in her arms and groaned. Twenty minutes later, she’d told them everything, from his misplaced confectionary at the World Cup to their business deal a few nights before. She left out the part about shaking hands. No one had said anything about lying by omission.

“Well,” intoned Jem, her voice echoing around the Hall; they always wound up being the last ones to leave brunch. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  
“Expecting what?”

  
“That the Weasley twins actually want to _do_ something with their lives,” Anna finished. “Is that what your Fanged Frisbee was for?” She spluttered with laughter when Sophie nodded. “Merlin, Soph. You act like you’ve been hiding porn.”

“It isn’t like that,” she protested weakly. Anna raised an eyebrow. If you repeatedly had to reassure people (and yourself) that something ‘wasn’t like that’, then it probably was. “The business is just starting up. Very much glint-in-the-milkman’s-eye.” She closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. Great – now she was even _talking_ like them. “But I have a lot of ideas. And they seem to like them.”

“I’ll say.” They swept past the Gryffindor table on their way out of the hall, having squeezed out every last possible minute of brunch. Sophie’s eyes automatically sought out the twins, in the middle of spinning some story to Harry Potter and his friends, but skittered away before she could get caught.

“I think it sounds really fun,” said Cho loyally, linking arms with her as they finally headed out of the Hall. They walked in companionable silence for a little while before Cho spun around, a wicked glint in her eye. “But next time three older boys ambush you in the middle of the night and entangle you in schemes –” an interpretation of events that Sophie hotly contested – “just remember that’s the sort of thing your best friends like to know.”


	6. You Like Making Me Wait For It

The thing about a house system which revolves around values (ascribed to you aged eleven, going on to dictate the course of your entire adult life, but that’s a story for another day) is that it makes you view your peers in a rather one-dimensional light. Jem had few qualms denouncing Marcus Flint as rotten to the core after he pulled some dirty tricks against them in last year’s ironically named Ravenclaw-Slytherin ‘friendly’. Lee had confessed to thinking of Sophie as little more than another Ravenclaw wallflower before he'd actually spoken to her. And she’d thought of the twins as Gryffindor intensified: daring; impetuous; cavalier – dangerous.

And they were. But daring shows itself in thinking outside the box for the business as well as in pelting teachers with snowballs every winter. Impetuosity makes a nice change from examining everything from every angle. They were cavalier and they pulled stupid stunts and everyone in the school knew their names, but every day showed her something new about the boys that she’d never thought to consider. For one thing, she was learning to tell the difference between Fred and George. It was true that they were pretty much identical down to the precise smattering of freckles across their noses – Anna, in a huff after a bad game, once declared that the only reason that inane Jordan was Quidditch commentator was because he was the only person who could tell one Gryffindor beater from the other. But they were different on a temperamental level.

Fred was half an inch taller and two minutes older and he never shut up about it. He was the instigator, the one who tended to speak first, while George preferred to chime in with the perfect punchline. They were the archetypal twins, always singing from the same hymn sheet, but it was more like perfect harmony than constant unison.

It also helped that one twin always seemed to be popping up where she least expected him. Or letting first years trample all over him so he could proposition her about a not-date to Hogsmeade. That helped her to tell the difference.

Lee, though an esteemed member of the wider WWW corporation, had been left behind for the purposes of today’s meeting. His role was largely confined to the boys’ dormitory (when the side effects were minimal) or the hospital wing (when the first batch of Sniffly Sherbet left him sneezing every three minutes all weekend). He’d seen them off to Zonko’s with a cursory salute, more concerned with flirting with Katie Bell than waiting on an old man in the cold. So it was just Sophie and the twins, armed with sketches, cost breakdowns and a barrel of nerves.

“It feels like that bit in _The Wizard of Oz_ ,” said Sophie, hopping from foot to foot as they waited for Zonko – it was particularly nippy for early October. The twins nodded vaguely; Sophie knew they'd long since taken to letting her muggle culture references wash over them. “When they’re about to see the man behind the curtain. I can’t believe Zonko’s a real person.”

“He’s a good bloke,” said George, in the same offhand way that you might speak of a distant cousin. “We’ve known him since we were knee-high to a house elf.”

“Nothing to be nervous about, Kincaid,” Fred assured her, though she noticed he kept checking his watch every few seconds as the time ticked, agonisingly slowly, towards their allotted meeting time.

Almost on the dot of three p.m., Zonko – at least, Sophie assumed it was him; there couldn’t be that many Hogsmeade residents with Albert Einstein hair and the faint smell of explosives hanging about them – threw open the door.

“Boys!” he said garrulously, embracing the twins like old friends. “Good to see you. Pull up a chair.”

Sweeping packaging debris onto the floor and trying not to gape as she took in the parts of the joke shop she’d never seen before, Sophie sat in his squishiest armchair, right by the fire.

Zonko did a double take of epic proportions. “This can’t be your sister, boys?” he asked, looking critically at her dark hair and then back at the redheads. “Someone needs to break the news to your father.”

  
“I’m Sophie,” she said loudly as George choked on his tea. “Sophie Kincaid. I’m friends with the boys.”

It struck her suddenly that this was _true._ There were no vestiges of Sophie the performing monkey – ‘what product name can you alliterate today?’ - about their relationship. It was a proper partnership of equals. It was all she needed to say to get into Zonko’s good books, at any rate. He chattered as much to her as to the boys as they warmed up, a whistle-stop conversational tour that covered Peeves’ latest mischief-making, the current big sellers with the third years, eager to make the most of their newfound Hogsmeade freedom, and the burgeoning success of his collaboration with Honeyduke’s.

“Down to business,” he said at last, knocking back a mug of Butterbeer in seconds flat. “You’re developing your own stuff, then?”  
The twins gave him much the same speech they’d given her at their midnight ambush, though George and Zonko waxed lyrical about the cost analyses and the pecuniary habits of the average fourteen-year-old wizard in far greater detail than she’d ever thought to go into. The old man always had a smile playing at the corner of his mouth – in his line of work, it was to be expected – and it only deepened as Fred impressed upon him the potential they saw in the business, the ways they’d learned from him over the years.

“And Sophie is our secret weapon,” Fred said. There was no hint of mockery in his tone; he said it like an indisputable fact, and Zonko took it as one. “The Ton-Tongue Toffee was our earliest idea –”

“As I remember, that one came to a sticky end,” said Zonko with a twinkle in his eye.

“Harry’s cousin,” George told her in an undertone. “Fat git. He had it coming.”

“But she’s come up with six others already. She’s our biggest asset.”

She tried her hardest to focus on Zonko, tuning out her jubilant inner voice that was repeating Fred’s words over and over again. Zonko held the mock-up Puking Pastille up to the light like it was a precious jewel. “You came up with this?” he asked, peering over his spectacles at Sophie.

“Yes.” She’d made so many notes in preparation for the meeting, scribbled down everything she could remember about her thought processes, but found she didn’t need them. “It’s colour-coded, see. The orange end makes you sick in the first place. Properly convulsing, your own mother would think there’s something wrong with you. And once you’ve been mercy-dashed to the hospital wing, you just pop in the purple half. You’re back to full health and your time is your own.”

She paused for breath.

The twinkle in Zonko’s eye was a full-on gleam now. “Inspired about the colour code. Even the simplest second year can’t get himself in too much trouble. Good work.”

She could have turned cartwheels all the way down main street. She had to press her lips together to stop herself from squealing. Fred caught her eye and winked, grinning.

“We’re still in the process of securing funding –” started George.

His brother scoffed and muttered darkly to Sophie, “If bloody Bagman pulls his head out of his arse, that is.” Sophie had rarely heard him addressed as anything other than ‘bloody Bagman’, ever since he’d conned the twins out of their winnings at the World Cup. She didn’t entirely trust them not to mug him (“it’s economic repatriation, Kincaid”) when he turned up to supervise the first task.

“But once we’re up and running, we’ll be looking for potential collaborators.” George seemed to slip from business-mode back into naughty schoolboy as he added, “And since you’ve been enabling our hijinks –”

“Our misdemeanours,” Fred chimed in, in an uncanny imitation of Professor McGonagall.

“For a while now, we reckoned you might be up for it.”

Zonko surveyed them. There was something almost regal about him in that moment, a stateliness somehow accentuated by his vaguely phosphorescent hair. She hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath until he spoke. “It’s no mean feat, setting up shop. Takes a lot of time. Money. Discipline. However,” and here he inclined his head towards Sophie, “I feel like this young lady can be trusted to keep you wrong ’uns in line.”

“I’ll whip them into shape,” she said with a laugh, barely registering Fred’s startled cough.

“Good lads,” Zonko murmured as he walked them to the door. At some point when they were indoors, the sun must have set; Hogsmeade was lit up by lamplight, like something out of a fairy-tale. They must have whiled away hours in there talking through prospective products. Sophie realised, as she recalled herself talking excitedly about Sniffly Sherbet et al, that they had been some of the best hours she’d spent in a long time.

“Don’t let them mess you about, love,” he said to her. She had to check her desire to go in for a hug. She assured him that she’d like to see them try, which earned a chuckle. At long last, after three false starts when George kept on having more questions about this new-fangled muggle whoopee cushion, the door closed behind them.

Professional Sophie nodded smartly and called it a day. But the teenager who’d never sat in a business meeting before and had just experienced the closest thing to the literal Wizard of Oz telling her she had great ideas couldn’t keep it in any longer.

“We _did it!_ ” she squealed, spinning around in the crisp evening air. “He likes me! He likes my _stuff._ I told you there was a way around the lollipop stick, didn’t I tell you –”

She could hear the twins were laughing at her, but it didn’t pull her up short the way it would have done just a few months before. She wasn’t worried they were going to levitate her schoolbooks right out of her hands for a laugh or incur Anna’s wrath at an end-of-Quidditch-season party. They weren’t like characters out of a storybook to her anymore. They were real people, who could rib her mercilessly about getting so worked up over one old man. They were her friends.

“You’re adorable, Kincaid,” said Fred as her whoops reverberated through the emptying streets. She found herself oddly breathless as she looked at him, cheeks reddened from the cold, wrapped up in his Quidditch jersey, looking at her in a way that could only be described as _fond._ Maybe friends wasn’t exactly the right word, after all.


	7. I Ain't Your Girlfriend (But You Don't Want Me To See Nobody Else)

Sophie had expected her fifth year to be an interminable slog towards exams – minutes that seemed like hours, broken up by annotated sketches of mandrakes or summoning each other's spare parchment for practice. But time was flying by. According to Annabelle’s Krum calendar, ripped out of an unsuspecting _Witch Weekly_ and pinned discreetly to the inside of her four-poster, it was already Friday 30 October. Sophie had been distracted all day in class (or rather, more than distracted than usual these days). But this time, all of Hogwarts was distracted with her.

As students streamed in the dining hall at five to six, there was a thrum of energy in the air, heads darting about to see where the other schools would enter. Jem and Annabelle had seconded themselves for a stake-out at the Black Lake where they’d heard a rumour the Durmstrang ship would be docking and had come back absolutely beside themselves. The way they spoke about it, Durmstrang consisted of Krum and his two-hundred strong entourage; they only had eyes for him.

“Have you got a quill?” Jem called anxiously, patting herself down in desperate search. “Never know when you might get him alone.”

“That doesn’t sound the way you think it does,” said Cho with a grimace. She pulled a spare one out of her pocket anyway. Dumbledore took to the lectern (“looking festive,” Jem whispered, admiring his snazzy new purple robes) and tried to impart some wisdom. But any advice, sage or otherwise, went right over the girls’ heads as the back doors were flung open.

“Look at the _size_ of her,” Sophie said, almost without realising it. Cho batted her absent-mindedly on the knee, always concerned with good manners, but even she was gawking. The tallest and most majestic-looking woman they’d ever seen glided down the hall. In her wake were several hundred students, some of whom could barely be seen under their piles of scarves and hats. They looked around the Great Hall imperiously, as if after several days in a Abraxan-drawn carriage warranted a welcome in slightly more luxurious surroundings. They settled at the Ravenclaw table as the best of a bad bunch, and one girl in particular made a show of fastening her cloak tighter around her.

“ _Hello_ ,” said Jem, craning her neck to look at the bevy of Beauxbatons boys who had sat one bench up from them. “They don’t make them like that at Hogwarts.”

There was no point denying it. The boys were gorgeous. Sophie stared at them unabashedly, taking note of their delicate (but hideously impractical) blue silk uniforms. Even their thick woollen gloves were somehow stylish. Between the heads, she locked eyes with Lee, who grinned and impersonated her, tongue hanging out and hands clasped together like some lovestruck cartoon character. She had barely finished flipping him the bird when the doors opened again. Dumbledore must have been saying something in between their arrivals – waxing lyrical about the ginormous woman, probably – but she took no note of it. The Durmstrang cohort strode down the hall, steel-toed boots clacking imperiously. Anna’s nails dug into her arm and held on for dear life when they caught a glimpse of Krum. He was even more impressive life-size. He surveyed the hall appreciatively, hands clasped behind his back. It was a particularly acute disappointment when the Durmstrang lot sat at the Slytherin table, too far across the hall to be within reasonable earshot, but it probably saved Anna from a medical emergency.

Why was Dumbledore still talking? No one was paying him the slightest bit of attention. And when she caught snippets of his warning about the age line encircling the Goblet, she just rolled her eyes. One glance at the Gryffindor table confirmed what she already knew – that the Weasley twins didn’t intend on being stopped by anything as insignificant as an enchanted chalice. They weren’t the only ones making plans. The Beauxbatons students, most of whom had failed to be impressed by anything Hogwarts had to offer thus far, were appropriately stunned by the Goblet, and chattered away to one another. 

“I think they’re talking about who the champion should be,” Jem said in an undertone, “but I’ve got no idea. Didn’t do French in primary. Might be asking each other to pass the gravy.”

“They’re all so beautiful,” said Cho, worrying the edge of her sleeve. Sophie smiled to herself as she intercepted Cho's glances over to Cedric, trying to gauge if he’d been as overcome by the new arrivals as Ron Weasley, who’d shattered a glass when a Beauxbatons girl accidentally trod on his toe. “They all look about five years older than we do.”

They certainly had poise. The girl who’d drawn her cloak that bit tighter around her looked especially determined. She was indisputably gorgeous, silvery blonde hair offsetting her immaculate uniform. She seemed like the de facto leader of the older Beauxbatons students; the boys, who had been whispering feverishly since they sat down, were quietened by the quirk of her eyebrow. One of them caught Sophie’s eye as he looked about, laughing, alabaster skin stretched over high cheekbones. She suddenly understood how Ron might have dropped that glass.

“Do you reckon they’re coming to classes with us?” asked Anna as they piled out of the hall. She was trying to keep track of Krum, but he’d already been taken to one side by the odious Malfoy. Between him and their sinister headmaster, Anna didn’t stand much chance of making polite conversation with Krum.

“I think they get taught on those boats,” Sophie said. The Beauxbatons carriages had to be deep-cleaned of winged horse muck (all glamour) and she didn’t suppose they’d be cooped up inside that thing for six months, no matter how many charms were cast on it. In the moonlight, she could see the Durmstrang ship looming, and a smaller Napoleonic-looking vessel next to it. Though it was less exciting than having everyone in all together, it was probably for the best. Hogwarts already felt so much busier – they’d been so tightly packed on those benches that she’d ended up splattered in Marietta Edgecombe’s gravy – so there was no way they could all fit into the classrooms. “Maybe you can give Krum some English lessons.”

“Don’t put ideas in her head,” said Cho with a good-natured eye roll. “Anyway, by the looks of things, she’d better get in line.”

It was true. Half of Hogwarts, including Fred and George’s little brother (no longer so little, growing just as gangly as the twins), had pressed up as close behind Krum as they could, desperate to catch a glimpse of him. It was like when Harry had first come to the school and Jem had done a spit take with her pumpkin juice when they called his name to be sorted.

“Looking for an autograph, Armstrong?” said Fred breezily as they got squished together (a few thousand students all trying to leave the hall at the same time was bound to end in disaster). “Product idea,” he said in an aside to Sophie: “Quills that do autographs of famous witches and wizards. Dumbledore, Krum, Harry. Could make a killing.”

“We’re not going to ask for his _autograph,_ ” said Anna derisively, silently thanking her lucky stars that no Weasley twin would ever gain access to their dormitory and her hidden Krum Korner. “He must get so sick of girls asking for that.”

“Girls, and your brother,” Sophie remarked, watching Ron’s face go through the whole spectrum of human emotions as Krum headed down to the Black Lake. The dream of them bunking in together was snatched away. Oh, cruel fate.

“What about you, Kincaid?” Fred asked with a nudge, as George launched into the story of Ron’s long-time love affair with Krum, replete with a rendition with their summer smash-hit, _Viktor, I Love You_. “Will you be worshipping at Armstrong’s shrine tonight?”

Despite the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to pick Krum out of a line up before the summer, Sophie said mock-earnestly, “Oh, absolutely. I’m holding the vigil from ten till twelve.”

Some tiny part of Fred seemed to sag momentarily. It picked itself up in no time, but he was didn’t quite look her in the eye as he said, “I reckon we could have flogged gallons of love potions if we’d had them ready. Missed opportunity.”

They stood at the point where the routes to the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms converged. Colin Creevey’s camera, flashing every few seconds, lit up everyone bustling around her but she was rooted to the spot. Fred smiled, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

“Enjoy your vigil. Don’t let Armstrong summon anything she might regret.”  
“Keep your voice down,” grumbled Annabelle, as if any one of the portraits might overhear and dash off to tell Krum something embarrassing about her.

Or, any of the Durmstrang boys, who would be rather more of an immediate threat to her chances.

“Excuse me,” said the boy in heavily accented English as he squeezed past Sophie. He grinned lazily, not seeming to have caught Fred’s taunt. “It is like Piccadilly Circus in here! No?”

“How does he know what that is?” whispered Cho as he melted back into the ether of departing students.

“Who cares?” asked Jem, already sizing up a potential Krum replacement.

Fred had stopped in his tracks when the Durmstrang boy came past, forcing the first years to slalom around him like some kind of assault course. He watched him dawdle down to the lake with a look that was hard to define. Then, supremely casual: “Forgot to say. Nice hair.”

He twitched the ends of her ponytail, curled for the special occasion, with his wand, wheeling around the corner with George in tow before she could make a sound. And as she returned to the common room and Anna rated every boy they’d interacted with that night when compared to Krum, she knew that no international Quidditch star could gave her anything like the butterflies in her stomach that Fred just had.

Just her luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know only the Durmstrang students actually came over on the ship but consider this: I cannot resist the romance of boats on the Black Lake. Hope you're enjoying! The last few chapter titles have been taken from 'Bad Liar' by Selena Gomez, 'I Really Really Like You' by Carly Rae Jepson (CRJ supremacy in 2020) and 'boyfriend' by Ariana Grande.


	8. That Fire You Ignited (Good, Bad And Undecided)

“How are you feeling?”

Cho squeezed Sophie’s hand in reply, but she was still incredibly pale. Then again, there is probably no right way to react when your almost-boyfriend decides he wants nothing more than to throw himself into the hands of fate. Cho, Sophie, Jem and Anna were markedly more sombre than Cedric himself, trailing a few steps behind as he raced down the corridor, getting psyched up by his mates. Whenever he turned round to give Cho a reassuring grin, she switched on a mega-watt smile, but it flickered out just as quickly. They’d thought that Cedric might be the first to put his name in the goblet, but by the time they got there, they had to line up behind several Beauxbatons candidates. They had been waiting outside the hall since seven on the dot, immaculately turned out; next to them, the average Hogwarts student staggering down to breakfast looked even more bedraggled.

Jem had heard through the grapevine that Krum had put his name in, along with a few other, less exciting Durmstrang candidates.

“You’re a shoo-in, mate,” said one of Cedric’s friends, clapping him on the back. “Rather you than Davies, any day."

Normally Cho would have been delighted to get one over on smarmy Roger Davies, who consistently underutilised her in training. Today, she managed only the faintest of smiles.

Suddenly, from inside the hall there was an almighty bang, followed by the sound of hundreds of students hooting with laughter. Sophie hardly had a second to register the noise before two haggard figures, doubled over by a combination of the burden of old age and hysterical laughter, came bursting through the doors.

“Kincaid,” said one of the elderly men through his splutters, “isn’t George simply the ugliest old bastard you’ve ever seen in your life?”

“Takes one to know one,” said the other, wheezing away. Even as octogenarians, they were identical, freckles paler on wrinkled skin with matching bushy sideburns.

“So much for the Polyjuice potion?” she asked, marvelling at the length of Fred’s beard, growing by the second.

“The Cup is charmed to reject anyone under seventeen,” said Cho. Sophie was pleased to see that the sight of her ridiculous friends had put some colour back into Cho’s cheeks. Even the cohort of Durmstrang students behind them were snickering.

“Really, Chang? We had no idea!” cried Fred, now rapidly approaching ninety. If you looked closely, you could see his skin withering in real time. “Thought this was the standard competitors’ greeting.”

“I hope not,” said Cedric with a laugh. He tossed what he clearly thought was a casual glance over to Angelina Johnson, who’d just put her name in the Cup without incident. But one look at Cho told Sophie that she hoped there’d be a thousand Angelina Johnsons, queuing out of the doors all day long, and Cedric would just have to give the whole thing up.

“How are you doing that, Soph?” asked George, starting to sway on his feet. “There’re two of you, all of a sudden.”

“I like the sound of that,” said Fred, waggling his eyebrows in a manner that could have been flirtatious if they weren’t so crusty with dandruff.

“You’re ridiculous, the pair of you,” she said through her giggles, mercifully safe from any and all butterflies in her stomach while Fred was in such a state. She packed them off to the hospital wing, still sizzling and woozy from being thrown ten feet in the air, though at the rate they were moving, she wondered if she ought to have conjured some mobility scooters.

“You’re so smitten,” accused Jem. “Smitten kitten.”

Sophie realised that she’d been watching them hobble away with a distinctly fond look in her eyes. She tried to wipe her face of any incriminating emotion.

“ _Me?"_ bluffed Sophie, wondering agitatedly what was taking Cedric quite so long. Surely they’d been standing in line for at _least_ an hour. “Yeah, randy old men with smoke coming out of their beards really do it for me.”

“If you say so.” Jem turned back with a sly grin and left at that. Somehow, this was the worst possible outcome.

As Cedric wrote his name on a slip of parchment in long, sloping handwriting, the Beauxbatons girl who’d made such a fuss about the cold the night before glided over to the cup. She folded the slip of paper that bore her name crisply in half and dropped it into the goblet.

“See?” whispered Anna. “Everyone and their mother is entering this tournament. Ced’s got no chance.”

Despite her tactless phrasing, Cho looked cheered for a few moments. But when Cedric gulped, strode over to the cup and placed his name inside, closing his eyes briefly as if he were bartering with fate, a sort of chill went through Sophie. She didn’t know if the goblet chose the most qualified candidates or if it were a complete lucky dip. Maybe she _should_ have listened to Dumbledore’s explanation last night rather than ogling Krum from across the hall. But with his prowess on a broom, proficiency for Charms and winsome appeal, Cedric looked every inch the Hogwarts hero as he returned to his girlfriend, who gave him a shaky smile. Sophie hoped, desperately, that her gut was wrong.

Operation Keep Cho Distracted was a task of mythic proportions, but Sophie, Jem and Anna were determined to rise to the occasion. In Herbology that morning, they were wrestling with fanged geraniums, and Sophie kept up a steady stream of chatter about the role that these flowers had played in the muggle War of the Roses. Admittedly, this factoid went down rather better with the other muggle-borns in the class; half-blood Cho had mixed up the Tudors with the Four Georges in her muddled primary education. She’d resorted to using the geraniums as sock puppets by the end of the lesson, which enjoyed greater success but pricked her thumbs no end. Anna managed to get herself covered in Flobberworm mucus during a particularly ill-disciplined Care of Magical Creatures class and Jem recounted her mother’s memories of Karkaroff from her time in the field in Moscow for a lunchtime story. But just when they thought she was finally loosening up, Cho had to head off for her afternoon block of Ancient Runes alone.

“Chang alright?” asked Fred as the three of them walked to class together – or rather, walked Sophie to Potions while the boys tried to avoid class for as long as they could. The twins were newly fresh-faced after Madame Pomfrey briskly saw to them, though Fred’s eyebrows were still a little singed. “Looked pale as anything.”

“Not really.” Sophie sighed, weighing up how long she could linger outside the dungeon before Professor Snape would fling open the door. “It’s all a bit damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. She’s scared for him, but she’d hate to see Davies or someone as champion instead.”

“We’re gunning for Angelina,” said George. “But even if it is Diggory, she’ll have nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah. She’ll just have to share him with the entire female population of three wizarding schools.” Fred grinned at her, darting around the corner as Snape approached the door. “It’ll all be okay, Kincaid,” he called as they backed away, evidently not heading in the direction of their Charms lesson. “Chin up.”

Sophie felt like she’d taken a Befuddlement Draught, not brewed one, by the time she left that classroom. She’d been of no use whatsoever to Marietta, relegated to just stirring anti-clockwise after she’d almost sliced her hand open cutting up the sneezewort. No matter how many times she reminded herself just how many students had put their name in the goblet, how very small the chance was that Cedric would be called upon, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen that night. The dining hall seemed more closely packed than ever, burning candelabras only adding to the body heat. As the Beauxbatons delegation once more took their seats at the Ravenclaw table, Sophie felt an elbow digging into her ribs.

“Excuse me!” It was alabaster boy from the night before, speaking in charmingly accented English. On any other night, this would have reduced Sophie to a stammering reply, but she just smiled tightly and angled herself back towards the goblet, following Cho’s anxious gaze.

“My name is Phillipe,” tried the boy. “I would shake your hand but I find I am – how you say – straitjacketed.”

He earned a snort of laughter. “There are so many of us packed in so tight,” he soldiered on, smile showing his perfectly even teeth. “We are sardines tonight.”

“You’d think a magical school would find a way to elongate the tables,” she quipped, finally turning to face him properly. She went to shake his hand but found that he was right; she was literally pinned in, Jem’s shoulder pressing firmly into hers. “I’m Sophie.”

“ _Enchanté_ ,” he said, bowing his head. It was something her grandfather would say, the kind of thing that would sound hopelessly alien in the mouth of anyone her age, but seemed completely at home in his. She shot him a last smile before Dumbledore stood to address the schools. As she turned, she caught Fred watching her intently; the odd configuration of students meant he’d had a perfect vantage point of their discussion. She went to mouth something to him but his gaze skittered away like a scared rabbit.

The goblet had been flickering blue since the night before but its flames had become a rich scarlet as it selected the first Triwizard Champion. A thousand faces were illumined by its light, leaning ever closer in anticipation. Sophie’s face was practically buried in the nape of Jem’s neck by the time Dumbledore read the name, “Viktor Krum!”

The hall erupted with cheers, none louder than Ron Weasley at the Gryffindor table, who seemed to have gone quite red in the face. He provided a fortunate distraction from Annabelle, whose cool-girl image well and truly died as she leapt to her feet in jubilation. This brought a proper smile to Cho’s face, although her nails were still leaving pale crescents in her palms.

“From Beauxbatons –” Dumbledore paused for effect, and the boys on the bench beside them stiffened with anticipation. “Fleur Delacour!’

The ludicrously beautiful girl who’d been so troubled by the cold last night looked as though nothing could touch her now. She swept through the hall with a glint of triumph in her eyes. Phillipe and his friends were whooping behind them, so Sophie supposed Fleur couldn’t be all that scary once you got to know her. A few seats down, some Beauxbatons girls looked bitterly disappointed, as if they’d been mentally halfway through drafting a letter of victory to their parents that would now never be sent.

“Our Hogwarts champion,” said Dumbledore, after the Goblet had taken an age to spurt up the final name, “is –”

Angelina Johnson! Roger Davies! Neville Longbottom! Mrs Norris! Anyone but –

“Cedric Diggory!”

The Hufflepuff table exploded with deafening cries but for Sophie, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. As students in all corners of the hall stomped their feet and hollered, she, Jem and Anna stared at Cho, who’d gone almost translucent. Just as Sophie opened her mouth to say something (not that she knew at all what to say to a friend whose paramour was off to court death for the rest of the school year), Cho broke into a watery smile. Dredging up courage from somewhere, she rose to her feet and applauded. Somewhat less wildly than those at the neighbouring table, but nothing short of a feat of selflessness. When Sophie clapped, it was for Cho, much more than for Cedric.

She didn’t notice at first that the flames of the goblet hadn’t been extinguished. As Cho began the tightest braid her hair had ever known, the fire resurged, now scarlet. The cacophony of noise that had followed the announcement of all three champions dwindled. Sophie could hear each individual step Dumbledore took towards the cup as he drew out the final snip of parchment. For a mad moment, she wondered if the twins had managed to get around the age line after all, but a quick glance at Fred confirmed they were just as much in the dark as she was. 

“Harry Potter,” said Dumbledore quietly.

Every head in the hall swivelled to where Harry was sat. He hauled himself up, fixing his gaze determinedly on the floor. Guarding his newly vacant spot was Ron Weasley, whose blush was slowly spreading all over his face. Sophie watched, stricken, as the boy who’d given her friends a run for their money in Quidditch practice, the twins’ little brother’s veritable shadow, disappeared into the next room.

“ _Shit,_ ” whispered Jem, mouth hanging open in shock. It was as good a response as any.


	9. See The Thorn Twist In Your Side (I Will Wait For You)

If Sophie hadn’t been able to sleep _before_ the party raging in Gryffindor Tower reached fever pitch, she had no chance afterwards.

“Are you okay?” whispered Jem as she crept out of the dormitory. Jem never closed the curtains around her four poster at night, still (ever so slightly) afraid of the dark and reliant on a hint of moonlight to be able to sleep. Sophie nodded. She left the door slightly ajar, so that some of the candlelight downstairs might seep through. She could just about make out Jem’s silhouetted thumbs-up of thanks.

The homesick-homework brigade had already called it a night, far too swept up in the furore of a fourth Triwizard Champion to pay much attention to the practical use of levitation charms, or whatever it was first years learned about these days. Sophie had the common room almost entirely to herself, save for a dreamy girl a few years below who liked to sit up with the owls in the early hours. She wandered over to the common room library, exceptionally well-stocked. There was a tradition that every graduating Ravenclaw donated a copy of their favourite book upon leaving. Fortunately for muggle-borns up and down the nation, that meant you had things like _Charlotte’s Web_ alongside stacks of _Gadding with Ghouls._ She ran her fingers up and down the spines of the books and felt instantly more at home. As she reread the opening lines of _I Capture the Castle,_ stained slightly with Butterbeer but no less legible, a feeling of complete peace came over her.

“Psst! Psst! Oi – Kincaid!”

Fred Weasley rolled into the common room like a particularly inelegant secret agent, barefoot with his tie somehow knotted through his belt loops. He collapsed onto the nearest reading seat.

“What are you _doing_ here?” she asked. She could still hear the faintly pulsating Celestina Warbeck remix from the Gryffindor Tower.

Fred simply grinned, rolling his head to stare at her, looking for all the world as if he’d been sucking on a Lolling Lollipop. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he said, gesturing towards the night sky with a jerk of his chin. “Up at all hours. Can’t be good for your REM cycle.” Unable to wait in silence for more than a second, he burst out with, “Don’t you want to know how I got in?”

Sophie rolled her eyes. The Halloween riddles were always a little bit soft. They were designed to let the first years catch a break after two months solid of coming up against a Sphinx every time they wanted to go to bed. Something forgiving about a vampire or a goblin, usually. Like one of those first years, however, Fred looked inordinately pleased with himself, so she humoured him. “How did you get in?”

Fred swung himself around so he was upright and concentrated, as if he were navigating a particularly tricky point of law. “I am wrapped but I am not a gift, but archaeologists find me a great treasure. What am I?”

He looked at her hard. In the midst of laughing to herself over this glorified Christmas cracker riddle, she noticed just how warm his brown eyes were. “I’m a mummy!” he nearly shouted, and the stress of getting him to be quiet distracted her from her stomach going topsy-turvy.

“I came here to tell you something,” he mumbled, eyes bleary. “Something important.”  
She blinked. She was so glad the others were in bed. She could just picture Jem’s eyebrows waggling suggestively. She tugged at the sleeves of her bulky winter cardigan, wishing somewhere in the corner of her mind that she were better dressed for the occasion – said, “oh?”. Ever so casual.

“I have so many ideas,” he said, and she wanted to giggle at his profound tone. “About – the ‘eat me’ cake and the ‘drink me’ thing – the snack that talks back, I was thinking. And then a whole mad tea party set, with things that look sweet but are really savoury, and something to do with cups and saucers, but I haven’t figured that out yet.”

She looked at him, incredulous. “You read _Alice_?” She didn’t know what she’d been expecting him to say, but it certainly wasn’t this.

“Yeah.” One too many shots meant he was a little slurry, but his eyes were bright and alert as ever. “Like, four times. And _Through the Looking Glass,_ but that was a bit naff.”

She found herself, preposterously, near tears as she said, “I can’t believe you read it.”

“Course.” He smiled at her like it was simple, like he was bound to remember every offhand Muggle literary reference she ever made. Nothing to get worked up about. “You’re Nosebleed Nougat Girl. Your ideas are always good. Wanted to see where they came from.”

Now she really was crying. Scrunching up her eyes so she didn’t have to look at him, she said, “ _Alice_ was my favourite book when I was little. I used to act it out. Sometimes my mum was the White Rabbit, but mostly it was just me. I did them all in different voices.”

“Did you do costumes?” Of course that was his reaction; not sidestepping her childhood loneliness, not twisting his mouth at the idea of her spending whole summers jabbering away quietly to herself. Understanding, and wanting to know more.

“Yeah.” She could see it now; fashioning cast-off curtains into a Queen of Hearts dress, held up by old bits of fishing line rather than a hoop skirt; stealing one of her mother’s tiaras from her debutante days and fretting endlessly when she got a speck of mud on it. “Quick changes like you wouldn’t believe.”

“You should’ve been at the Burrow,” said Fred, putting his chin in his hands and settling in for the long haul. “You could have had a cast of thousands.”

“Yeah. You and George, Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

“Piss off, Kincaid.” He grinned. “Gin as the White Rabbit, Bill as the old feller. Endless possibilities.”

“You’re so lucky they are so many of you. I can’t imagine that.” Stories spilled out of her: how acute the shift was from bustling London townhouse during term-time to spending every school holiday in the Highlands; how the feeling that you’re completely cut off from the rest of civilisation can be simultaneously the best and worst thing in the world; how she’d spent one entire summer in character as Mary, Queen of Scots, who her father spuriously claimed as a blood relative.

“She was at Beauxbatons, you know,” Fred told her. He was lit up in flickers by the firelight but she could tell he was giving her his undivided attention. “Fiendish about dragons. Charlie had a massive crush on her. You probably had a crush on the March Hare or something.”

She chucked a stray quill at him, which he managed to avoid; lightning quick Quidditch reflexes, even under the influence.

“I think I knew I wasn’t normal,” she said after a moment. “Even then.”

“Do you know what sort of stuff you did? George and I used to swap places. Even without trying. End up in each other’s cots and stuff. That’s when Mum started putting letters on our jumpers."

She could imagine that so clearly; baby Fred and George, communicating via twin telepathy before they were even old enough to blow spit bubbles. “My mum always says that when I had tantrums, it made the hearth light up. So if my dad couldn’t get the wood to catch, they’d just wind me up until I screamed and then we’d be fine.”

Fred threw his head back laughing, like a little kid does when they find something riotously funny. “I can see that. Kincaid, the Highland Horror.”

“That’s why I liked reading so much, I think.” She was hitting upon a truth she’d never realised she knew. “I set things on fire, Alice could shapeshift. We weren’t so different.”

“And here you are.” It really was that simple. Ten years of feeling, always in the back of her mind somewhere, like an outcast; like she didn’t belong anywhere; with anyone. But now here she was. With Fred.

It didn’t feel anything like two in the morning. Even the dreamy girl had retired from the owlery by the time they were finishing up their parchment aeroplane competition, with both muggle rounds (Sophie had spent years developing the perfect technique to soar through the long corridors of Craig Castle) and magical ones (Fred had been charming his aeroplanes to poke Percy on the behind since before he could remember).

“Hey,” he said suddenly, chucking the remnants of an early prototype at her. “Who was that at dinner?”

She had to stop trying to brush past him without giving him a paper cut to think. “You mean Phillipe? From Beauxbatons?”

Fred launched into an imitation French accent, which quickly devolved into Italian, even down to the hand gestures. She had to direct her entire brigade of parchment aeroplanes to him before he’d quieten down.

He went silent for so long that she thought he’d forgotten he’d asked. “Will he get a bedroom shrine next to Krum’s?”

She tried to catch his eye, expecting to see a mocking smirk like the one Lee had directed at her the night before, but his brow was furrowed, refolding one of his aeroplanes again and again.

“I’d need a poster for that,” she said lightly, deciding to play it off as a joke, whatever it had been. “Couldn’t compete with Anna’s display otherwise.”

“I’m sure he’d be more than happy to – ‘how you say’ – sign.”

Sophie chose to pin this new mood, incisive and oddly bitter, on atrophying brain tissue after too much Firewhisky. It was too late to entertain the other possibility. He snapped out of it quite quickly, challenging her to a final contest before he stumbled off to bed, which turned into a best of three after his aeroplane betrayed him and sunk sullenly behind the starting line.

“Are you going to make it back okay?” she asked as they leaned out of the portrait hole. The moving staircases left her disoriented when she was sober, let alone drunk out of her mind after an all-night bender. Fred gave her a surprisingly sharp salute.

“Kincaid, who do you think you’re talking to?”

She rolled her eyes, but he had a point. If anyone had experience navigating Hogwarts in the dead of night, it was the Weasley twins. She was halfway through panning his aeroplane structure for the last time when she heard a small cough approximately three feet below.

Professor Flitwick stood before them, impressively authoritarian for someone who had to tilt his head all the way up and still manage to look down his nose at Fred.

“Mr Weasley. You are an awfully long way from Gryffindor Tower.”

“I got lost, Professor,” Fred said earnestly, trying to drape his tie back around his neck without drawing too much attention to himself. “Even after six years, Hogwarts has a way of surprising me. Miss Kincaid was giving me directions.”

His charm bounced right off Flitwick, ordinarily a quiet fan of the twins’ antics. However, he had endured a tough enough night patrol already what with all the noise coming from the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. They’d engaged in an informal but furious contest of who could make the biggest racket that night. Lee, who had just set off firecrackers, was bringing it home for Gryffindor.

“Well. Perhaps you can familiarise yourself with the school’s cartography in detention with me tomorrow evening.”

“Oh, no, Professor,” said Sophie hurriedly. “Really, this is my fault. I – I kept on giving Fred the wrong directions.” The ill-fated explorer attempted to disguise a snort of laughter as a cough. “So if anyone needs a cartography lesson, it’s me.”

Flitwick sighed deeply, wafting the ends of his moustache. “Ten points from Gryffindor for being out of bounds, Mr Weasley. A detention will be in order if this happens again."

“Quite right,” said Fred, snapping to attention like a private in the army. “Exactly what I would do in your position, sir.”

Flitwick tried very hard to keep himself from smiling. As he turned to continue his patrol – putting out those firecrackers would require quite a complex water charm – he added, “May I encourage the pair of you to conduct your subsequent romantic liaisons during daylight hours?”

“Professor,” squeaked Sophie as Fred almost choked on the knot of his tie. “That’s –”

“Miss Kincaid, if you return to your dormitory immediately, you may well have been too quick for me to see.”

Defeated, she bowed her head. It was a beetroot-red but grinning Fred Weasley who called out softly, “Night, Kincaid.” With Flitwick’s knowing eyes on her, she was too embarrassed to reply.


	10. It's My Right To Be Hellish

“I hereby call this meeting of the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes Product Development Team to order,” declared Fred, in an awfully magnanimous tone for someone who was perched on an upturned cauldron. “Lee, tell Kincaid the good news about testing.”

It was too nice a day to be holed away in the common room, pale November sun peeking out from between the clouds, so Sophie had asked that they host the meeting outside. No bother with passwords or riddles, for once. 

Lee stood to attention, squinting into the sunlight. “Reporting no further negative side effects with the final batch of Canary Creams.”

“Can’t even see where the beak used to be,” said George proudly.

Lee placed a protective hand over his nose. “I have to veto any more sherbet tests. For the time being, anyway. Feel like an absolute cokehead.”

“He’s been sneezing sherbet again,” Fred told Sophie in a confidential tone. “Makes the snot fizz.”

“Disgusting,” she said mildly. “We can always look into other ways of using sherbet. Have to think about a name change, though.”

The boys nodded sagely. George pulled out a roster of all the products currently in development, from those that were slowly unfurling in the back of Sophie’s mind to fully fledged and ready to go.

“Put it on the backburner for now,” he said authoritatively. “We’ve got enough to be getting on with.”

He was right. Every few days, a new idea was scribbled in. It gave Sophie great satisfaction to see how many of the products were her ideas, or where an old name had been crossed out and replaced with something snappier (in nicer handwriting).

“With the Creams,” Fred said, drumming out a beat with his fingers on the sides of the cauldron. “I think we should launch at the first task.”

Lee barely had time to ask when exactly that was again before Sophie interjected with, “The twenty-fourth.” She’d been counting down subconsciously, as Cho braided her hair tighter and tighter each night. “How much do you reckon we could get?”

“We’re saying seven sickles,” said George. “Not a Knut under.”

“Six,” she argued. “Be safe.”

“Kincaid, even _we_ had seven sickles to blow on sweets when we were younger,” said Fred archly, tossing the merchandise up in the air.

Lee, who’d been pinging pebbles at Fred’s cauldron and trying to make a tune, suddenly straightened up. “Merlin, what’s wrong with your mates?”

Sophie followed his gaze to Jem and Anna, sloping towards them with the longest faces she’d seen since the Ravenclaw team were trounced in last year’s House Cup.

“Who died, Armstrong?”

Annabelle could only summon a half-hearted scowl for George, nowhere near her full capacity for devastating looks. “Me. Of boredom.”

“Pince kicked us out of the library,” said Jem glumly, flopping down onto the grass and flipping through the papers the twins had brought down. “She’s only letting us in once a week.”

“Don’t ask,” said Sophie firmly. Let the boys believe that this was Ravenclaw swotting at its very worst. Rather that, than suffer the indignity of Jem and Anna confessing to stalking Krum through the book stacks most days since his arrival. “We’re doing pricing right now, so you might die of boredom here, too.”  
  
Her comments were falling on the deafest of ears. Anna was reading through the products list with considerable interest.

“Mad Hatter’s tea party set,” she read. “From _Alice In Wonderland_?”

  
“Has _everyone_ read this bloody book?” muttered George.

“Yeah,” said Sophie. She was buzzing with excitement as she explained, “We’re thinking of some kind of crossover between our edible range and something a bit more erudite.” She flipped to the right page in her notebook. “So, for _Alice,_ that’s an edible menu –”

“That gives you a little foretaste of what you’re about to have,” Fred interjected.

“On rice paper or something. And things that look sweet when they’re really savoury – that was Fred’s idea – and –” She trailed off. Jemima was looking at her with a smug grin the Cheshire Cat would struggle to beat. “What?”

“Nothing,” she sang. “Just nice to see what keeps you so busy all the time.” She turned to the boys with woe-is-me eyes. “You’ve stolen her. All she talks about is Weasleys’ Wicked Weavers.”

Jem was right. Not about the name of the business, which George wasted no time in correcting, but about Sophie’s state of mind. She pretty much ate, slept and breathed WWW. There was no escaping it; she was so far from the beaten track of becoming a Healer that she could barely recognise the part of herself that had wanted that. And that wasn’t to mention how her circle of friends had expanded. She hadn’t accounted for how easily Jem and Anna would slot into her new dynamic. Watching Jem flirt happily with Lee, alleging Sophie’s forsaking her piled on more abandonment issues thanks to her far-flung parents, while Anna rolled her eyes (she was always happiest when she had something to dismiss) and quizzed the twins on who was designing their logo, she thought to herself how _right_ it felt.

“Er – _Pardon_? Sophie?”  
Jolting her out of her reverie was Phillipe, looking apologetic (which was sweet) and handsome (by definition) as he towered over Fred on his cauldron. Suddenly feeling eyes on her, Sophie swung down her legs from where they’d been balancing on Anna’s lap and cleared her throat. Flashed him a smile.

“I was wanting to check on your friend,” he said slowly, looking around the group. “After the other night. She is not here?”

“Oh – do you mean Cho?” Since the announcement that Cedric was to be one of the Hogwarts champions, Cho spent every minute she had free glued to his side. Left to his own devices, he’d likely be scouring through the restricted section of the library looking for clues all day long, and forget he had an almost-girlfriend that needed a bit of affection until it was too late. Figuring Phillipe didn’t need all that detail, and Cho would never forgive her if she broadcast to the world how soppy she was being, Sophie said, “She’s somewhere about, but she’s doing okay. Thank you. For asking.”

He bowed his head, catching sight of the product list as he did. He bent down to take a closer look before Fred cut him off with a curt: “That’s confidential, actually, mate.”

“My mistake.” He just smiled amiably, hands elegantly clasped behind his back. Sophie curled her own hands into fists, suddenly self-conscious about her bitten nails. Something about Phillipe made you want to be on your best behaviour, all the time. “I will see you later, Sophie.”

Jem let out a low whistle as he went. “What _do_ they feed those French boys?”

Lee clutched a hand to his chest like she’d stabbed him in the heart. “Oh, Liu, you toy with me!”

“Can we get back to business?” snapped Fred. Sophie gave him a sceptical look. Between Anna and Jem crashing the party and the fact that she’d been painting her nails since they sat down, it had hardly been their most efficient meeting.

“He was just passing,” she pointed out. “He was being nice.”

Fred scoffed but said nothing, glaring at his shoes. Even Jem had gone silent.

Anna interjected bravely with, “Have you thought about any more book-related stuff?” Hesitantly, Sophie began to outline their plans for a _Mary Poppins_ bag which was charmed to store anything, up to and including the kitchen sink. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Fred still glowering, even when George gave him an unsubtle nudge with his foot. And that voice in the back of her head, gaining in confidence every day, told her she knew exactly why he was getting so worked up.


	11. You Tell All Your Friends I'm Crazy (Maybe You Just Like Me)

They didn’t talk about that afternoon again. Jem and Anna had exchanged some pointed looks – the anger behind Fred’s glare would have been enough to set that cauldron aflame – but they knew better than to drag anything out of Sophie before she was ready. Certainly, nothing about the incident made it into her long letters home, where Phillipe had yet to be mentioned. For the most part, she filled her letters with funny anecdotes from class, or drip fed them information about the business (if she introduced it slowly enough, maybe they’d forget she ever wanted to be a Healer). And if she never set pen to paper about it, then maybe Beauxbatons students would cease to exist; there would be no such thing as the Triwizard Tournament; Cedric wouldn’t be touted as the _real_ champion while Harry was by turns ostracised and obsessed over.

“He’s being a complete git about it,” said George dismissively on the morning of the first task. “How this is any worse than Harry being the Boy Who Lived beats me. Ron should be used to it by now.”

They were route-marching down to the purpose-built arena that blisteringly cold Thursday morning, keeping themselves warm primarily by exercising their mouths. McGonagall was leading the charge while Snape was trailing behind at the back, making sure no second years got any bright ideas and decided to head off to explore. Anna and Jem were engaged in a furious debate with Lee about Fleur’s unfair portrayal as the weakest champion, but Sophie had hung back with the twins. As Fred launched into his sixth reason why Ron’s feud with Harry was completely one-sided, Cho joined them, fresh from the competitors’ tent.

“They kicked me out,” she explained, cheeks reddened from the cold. “They wanted to get started straight away so I just said good luck and left. But they were talking about _dragons._ ”

Pureblood Jem, who’d grown up wanting a dragon in the same way some kids pester their parents for a pony, seemed to take this in her stride. So did the twins, thanks to growing up with Charlie. But for Anna, Lee and Sophie, whose mundane Muggle bedtime stories dictated that dragons were mystical, terrifying beings, rather than the sorts of things you chuck under the chin and call by name, this left quite the impression.

“Are you sure?” Sophie began to ask. After all, they’d taken so many precautions to make sure the tournament was safer this time around; the Head of the Department for Magical Games and Sports could hardly stand by and watch a dragon lay waste to the grounds. But any doubts were obliterated as they rounded the final corner to the stadium. An enormous, silvery-blue dragon sat centre-stage, its tail coiled around something golden that she couldn’t quite make out.

Cho’s shoulders sagged in disbelief. “It’s massive.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Fred with an air of winning confidence. “That’s a Swedish Short-Snout. Our brother Charlie works with them all the time. Fewer human killings to its name than almost any other kind of dragon.” He looked Cho right in the eye and smiled. “He’d be lucky to face something like that.”

Hesitantly, Cho nodded, the knot in her throat loosening ever so slightly. As they climbed the stands for the best vantage point, telling some first years who were getting a bit big for their boots to jog on and find somewhere else, Cho looked as relaxed as it was possible to look when your almost-boyfriend was set to face off against a deadly beast.

“Is that true? About the killing rate?” Sophie whispered once Cho was suitably distracted.

He looked at her with a sheepish grin. “Kind of. It’s only because they mostly live in tundra. No one about _to_ kill. But I’m not about to tell Chang that.”

She shoved him but she laughed. It was then that she knew there was no going back. Strange, she thought to herself afterwards, that it should be the lie tripping off his tongue that made her trust him so implicitly. He’d made the decision to cheer up Cho, even if that meant slightly fudging the facts about dragon species, because he knew she was important to Sophie.

_She liked Fred Weasley._

That voice in the back of her mind, now supremely confident, scoffed. As if she were only realising this now! As if the thrill of the business wasn’t bouncing ideas off him, watching his mind whirr, effortlessly keeping up and racing on! As if she didn’t know exactly why he got so moody every time Phillipe so much as looked in her direction! She sat with her knees knocking against his, which she’d later blame on uncontrollable shivers, and wondered who exactly she was trying to kid.

Cedric was the first out. She didn’t know how they’d paired the champions with their dragons, but she couldn’t imagine a fair fight between any of the students and this thing. Sophie felt the whole stadium draw its breath when he emerged, muscles taut and trembling as he grasped his wand. Next to her, Cho was digging into Sophie’s thigh with her nails, Hufflepuff scarf she’d been given for the occasion doing little to stop her shaking. Cedric circled the floor, keeping as much space as possible between him and the dragon. Taking a ragged breath, he muttered something, and pointed his wand not at anything near the dragon, or even in its eye-line, but something small by the judges' stand.

“What’s he doing?” asked Anna, trying to be quiet. She needn’t have bothered. Nothing could distract Cho – she was watching him like she was in some kind of trance. All became clear a few seconds later. What had once been a rock was no more, transfigured into a yapping Jack Russell. The dragon, whose refusal to acknowledge Cedric’s presence had been borderline rude, was interested now. Its eyes, then its whole head, followed the dog’s movements. The Jack Russell sped towards the right-hand corner of the arena, darting about like it was on show at Cruft’s. By a stroke of enormous good fortune, the dragon raised itself up and lumbered after it.

“Come on, Diggory!”

Even the twins found themselves cheering for Cedric as he sprinted towards the abandoned treasure, glimmering in the early morning sun. Cho was on her feet screaming like she was at a Quidditch match, wildly waving his scarf in the air. Clutching the egg, Cedric sent a dazzling smile in her direction and began to race back to the sidelines.

“Cedric!”

Cho’s cries were swallowed up by the roar of the dragon, unleashing fire in the fury of being outwitted so easily. Cedric, who’d made the error of glancing back rather than keeping his head down and running like hell, had been caught in the face by the flames. He slapped at his cheek to extinguish the fire. The dragon had chosen to seethe in place rather than running after him, but none of this could calm Cho.

“He’s fine,” Sophie promised her. “Look. He’s smiling.” And he was. Sooty and slightly worse for wear, the golden boy was holding aloft the golden egg, and the Hogwarts students in the stands were going mad. Cho sat down – let out a breath she’d been holding ever since his name came out of the goblet.

Fleur Delacour faced her dragon next, a Common Welsh Green.

“Child’s play,” said Lee derisively, as if he were the authority on these things. Jem smacked him and ranted about how this just proved her earlier point; the judges were conspiring to give the only female champion an easy ride. Ironically, their bickering overshadowed a pretty impressive use of a sleeping charm from Fleur. There was nothing sleep-inducing about Viktor Krum’s methodology. His cunning plan to give his Chinese Fireball conjunctivitis resulted in a lot of blind tail-thrashing, shattering some of the stand-by eggs and threatening to break into the crowds. But it was Harry Potter who drew the most fearsome of them all.

“A Hungarian Horntail,” breathed George. “Now _that’s_ proper.”

The dragon gave Harry hot pursuit in the skies, and the twins went quiet. For the first time all day, Sophie could see genuine fear in Fred’s eyes; his little brother’s best friend, the conquering hero of the wizarding world, his mother’s favourite, was risking his life. Just because it was super cool didn’t stop it from being utterly terrifying.

It was probably the pent-up tension of craning their necks to try and catch a glimpse of the action that meant the students absolutely lost it when Harry touched down, none the worse but for a scratch on the shoulder. A jubilant Fred crushed Sophie against him, howling in celebration right in her ear. She could feel his chest shuddering against hers as they laughed in tandem. For once, she didn’t worry about what the girls were going to say when she came up for air. She just whooped and hollered right along with him.

As they traipsed back up to the castle for afternoon lessons (an unspeakably dreary prospect after such excitement), they ran into Cho again, who’d snuck off during the judges’ deliberation to check on Cedric in the hospital tent.

“Hello, gorgeous,” said Jem, giving her a smack of a kiss on the forehead. “What’s got you all smiley?”

Since the night that the champions were announced, Cho had never quite relaxed. But those careworn days seemed long behind her. Cho was literally glowing as she bowed her head, checked that the boys weren’t listening (Fred was recounting the time they’d seen a Hungarian Horntail in the wild with Charlie, so she’d be safe there for another hour or two) and told them, “I went to see Ced. He’s already looking more like himself.”

“And?” prompted Sophie. As if she’d be so giggly over just that.

Cho beamed at them. It was like she’d lost fifteen years in fifteen minutes. “And he said I’d been a great lucky charm. And – he asked me to be his girlfriend!”

Jem let out an ear-splitting shriek, and even Anna leapt up and down with the rest of them. After over a year of psyching up Cho to talk to Cedric at breakfast or in between classes, devoting hours to selecting the perfect outfit for their dates, and hearing every detail of their first kiss, the fruits of their labour had well and truly paid off.

“Miss Chang,” asked Jem in her best Rita Skeeter impression, “how does it feel to have taken the Hogwarts heartthrob off the market once and for all?”

“Well, Rita,” replied Cho, seizing an imaginary microphone. “If I had to sum it up in one word, I’d say it feels fan-bloody-tastic!”

They veritably skipped up to school after that, and Sophie performed the most joyous transfiguration of a dinner plate into a mushroom the world had ever seen. At last, Cho could take a breather and enjoy a month or two of respite from her boyfriend flirting with fate. They could have a nice laid-back Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice laid-back Christmas? At Hogwarts?! Impossible. Thank you so, so much for all the wonderful comments and kudos you've been leaving - as I write this, I have two days to go until I get my A Level results, and this fic and AO3 has become such a happy place for me. For anyone keeping track of our songs, the last few chapters have been taken from 'Ultraviolet' by the Stiff Dylans (zenith of British pop punk), 'With or Without You' by U2, 'Jealous' by Nick Jonas (I know), and 'Undercover' by All-Star Weekend. Happy reading!


	12. I've Been Funny, I've Been Cool With The Lines (Ain't That The Way Love's Supposed To Be?)

“This will not be a ‘laid-back’ Christmas,” said Professor Flitwick firmly. Despite his diminutive stature, he had no trouble filling up a room. Not for him was the life of standing on top of boxes, screaming at the top of your lungs to try and be heard. Filius Flitwick just lived his life as if three and a half feet were the ideal height for a man; it was everyone else that was unusual. As for those above six feet? Freakish.

“In addition to studying for your OWL and NEWT mock exams, in the case of the fifth and seventh years –”

“I totally forgot we were doing those,” whispered Anna, whose commitment to academia had taken something of a backseat these past few weeks.

“We will be continuing to entertain our esteemed guests.” Here Flitwick deferentially inclined his head towards someone behind them. As she swivelled to look, Sophie discovered with a start that the Beauxbatons delegation were sitting alongside them, listening attentively. She’d never heard them come in. Perhaps all that silk made their footfall softer. Madame Maxime bowed in return – even bent over double, she was still taller than Flitwick – and motioned for him to continue.

“As you all know, the Triwizard Tournament is not only an opportunity for students to display their technical prowess, but a chance to promote European magical concord.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow. Considering the bitter undercurrent that still ran beneath relations between certain red-headed Gryffindors and their swish French counterparts, some bonhomie wouldn’t go amiss.

“On the evening of the twenty-fifth, Hogwarts shall host the Yule Ball. This is, first and foremost, an opportunity for you to socialise with other witches and wizards your own age.”

“I’d like to socialise with him,” said Jem in an undertone, pointing out a particularly attractive boy with thick eyebrows and lustrous dark hair.

“It is for this reason that I have extended an invitation to the Beauxbatons students today, which Madame Maxine has graciously accepted. You shall practice your dancing together.”

The room came alive with the mumblings and grumblings of hundreds of teenagers, many of whom looked like they were about to pass out, either from excitement or nerves. Fleur Delacour’s lingered upon Roger Davies, whose knees threatened to give way under him.

“Quiet! Please, quiet!” For a small man, Flitwick’s voice packed a punch (perhaps why he’d been such a valued bass in the Frog Choir in his day). The noise subsided. “While there will be opportunity for less – structured – entertainment later in the evening, students will be expected to learn the rudiments of British wizarding dance.”

“No such thing,” said Jem staunchly, awfully certain for someone raised with completely different magical traditions in Singapore.

“As these routines will likely be new to our honoured guests, we shall learn together. I need a volunteer.”

Sophie immediately became very interested in the straps of her shoes. Jem followed suit. Unfortunately, Annabelle had not been quite quick enough.

“Thank you, Miss Armstrong,” said Professor Flitwick, gesturing for her to come up and join him on the platform. This was not a request. Annabelle gaped at him, horrified, as the girls tried their best to contain their splutters. After an agonising few moments where Flitwick pretended not to understand her mouthed pleas to be excused, Anna hauled herself to her feet. Her shoes slapped across the stone floor as she resigned herself to her fate.

“Now,” piped up Flitwick, “the gentleman places his hand on the lady’s back.” He stretched his arm up as high as it could go, just about grazing the small of Anna’s back. Even the Beauxbatons students, usually so above it all, had begun to chuckle quietly.

“He has to keep this up now,” whispered Sophie to Jem, who was crying silently with laughter. “If his hand drops and ends up on her arse, he’s done for.”

Flitwick was making a concerted effort to ensure nothing of the sort happened. Neck tilted fully upwards to gaze at Anna, at least two feet above him, his voice was strained as he explained the basic steps. On several occasions, he had to remind a hideously embarrassed Anna, who was trying to get this over and done with as quickly as she could, to let him lead. The mortification, which she later insisted had gone on for at least quarter of an hour but was no more than a few minutes, finally ended with Flitwick sweeping a dignified bow. Anna popped history’s most perfunctory curtsey and sped back to her seat, where Jem and Sophie were now unabashedly hooting with laughter.

“Now you try,” said Flitwick, mopping sweat off his forehead with a silk handkerchief. He motioned for the pupils to stand as his charms created an intricate orchestral accompaniment.

Jem inched herself closer and closer to the boy with the thick eyebrows until it would have been ruder for him _not_ to ask her. Annabelle, who was decidedly no longer in the mood to dance, remained glued to her chair, casting judgement over the new couples with a few other girls in their year. As the students eyed each other from opposite sides of the hall, the contrast between the Beauxbatons and the Hogwarts boys could not have been more apparent. One set breezing up to the girls as if they’d done this hundreds of times before; the other gawking at them like a distinctly unappealing alien species.

“Would you like to dance?” Sophie hardly needed to look up – no Hogwarts boy would be able to get to the end of that question without stuttering. Phillipe was standing beside her, a wry smile playing on his lips. He courteously avoided eye contact with Annabelle, who was in no mood to hear platitudes about how it ‘hadn’t been that bad’ and ‘everyone would forget by tomorrow’. She was listening in, anyway, pinching hesitant Sophie until she took his arm.

They weaved their way through the existing couples to stand somewhere on the outskirts of the group. Sophie held out her arms in a vague approximation of what Anna had done but Phillipe only laughed. He gently corrected her stance. Seeing that she was an absolute beginner (the deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes gave her away, even if her footwork hadn’t), he counted out loud so they could keep time with the music.

“I take it they don’t teach you ballroom here,” he joked. Right on cue, a stupefied Roger stepped on Fleur’s toes yet again, unable to tear his eyes away from her face and watch where he was going.

“How could you tell?” she asked with a grin, narrowly avoiding a collision with Jem, who seemed to be steering her partner in the complete wrong direction. She looked up at Phillipe, the picture of sophistication. “Do they teach you?”

“Not at school,” he deflected, whisking her out of harm’s way as two fourth years bulldozed past them. He broke under her questioning stare and admitted, “My mother was a dancer when she was young. My oldest sister, she dances in the ballet now.”

It explained the natural grace of his movement. Sophie no longer felt so bad that he’d picked up the elements of British magical dance far quicker than this magical Brit. For the remaining songs, he regaled her with stories about his sister’s debut in Paris, watching his mother painstakingly make herself up for everyday life as though she were still glittering onstage. He showed polite interest in a whistle-stop tour of her own, far less glamorous, childhood. Even though he didn’t ask quite so many questions, she parted ways with him with all her toes intact, significantly more than could be said for Jem’s partner.

“And now his hand is _on her back,_ and Ron looks ready to leap off the Astronomy Tower.”

Fred had accosted her as she left the dining hall, desperate to tell her all the different ways in which their little brother had made a fool of himself. Although he was well within earshot, Ron hardly seemed to care, scowling into his sausages and blocking out the world. Their dance session had been Gryffindor-only, saving Ron from the kind of intercollegiate embarrassment that now hung around Annabelle. She’d pretended not to want dinner so that she wouldn’t have to tell Cho, who’d been to Madame Pomfrey with a head-cold, about her near-death experience.

“How were the frogs at dancing?” asked George, drowning his dinner in gravy.

“Her boy toy asked her to dance,” declared Lee, pointing at her with the prongs of his fork. “I can see it in her eyes. What’s the French version of Don Juan?” he asked Alicia Spinnet next to him, who had no idea and told him to pass the potatoes.

“He is _not_ my boy toy.”

“ _Pardon.”_ George’s French accent was hideous – if they’d been at the Ravenclaw table, he could have caused an international incident. “Your man toy. Who looks about twenty-five.”

“You alright?” Fred jumped at her question, as if he’d genuinely forgotten she was there. He plastered a grin on his face, but while she would have bought it a few months ago, she knew him too well now – the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Fantastic,” he said, with a bit of a bite, but smiling away. As if there was nothing he'd rather discuss than Phillipe's balletic prowess.

“ _Le Donne Jean_?” tried Lee. “Prince _Charmant?_ Take your pick, Kincaid.” But she wasn’t listening to him. That was just the problem, she thought to herself as she risked a glance back at Fred, guzzling down his green beans. If she had her pick, Phillipe wouldn’t be who she chose at all.


	13. You Never Gave A Warning Sign (I Gave So Many Signs)

The sixth year Gryffindor boys’ dormitory was a hive of activity throughout December, churning out Skiving Snackboxes by the dozen. Sophie had to pick her way around discarded containers or bloody tissues from Nougat gone wrong whenever she went in. While the twins and Lee assiduously attached pricing stickers (one galleon, no room for negotiation), she was swotting away for those OWLs she’d all but forgotten about. With the first task over, the professors had reached a mutual agreement that the fifth years had nothing better to do than work or die trying. She had essays coming out of her eyeballs. The girls had co-opted a discussion table in the common room and thrown up a silencing charm around it to get some peace (“I am willing to lay down my life for this table,” Anna had said to a fourth year who’d tried to take their spare chair. “If you cannot say the same, move along.”) But with the Weasley twins about, and their newfound proclivity for solving riddles, it would never be peaceful for long.

“Come play,” whined Fred, sitting backwards on the chair beside her and tickling her chin with the end of the quill. She batted him away absentmindedly, running through the method she would use in her Draught of Peace practical. “It’s not good for you, all this work.”

  
“Isn’t it?” she said, not really listening. Fred took her acknowledgement, however vague, as a good sign.

“Let’s go into Hogsmeade,” he said excitedly. “Or we can get a snowball fight going. Ron’s been talking about asking Fleur to the dance, and a snowball to the brain might knock some sense into him. Do him good.” His face relaxed into something more serious as he said, “Would do you good, too. Take a break, Kincaid.”

“I can’t,” she snapped, and regretted it as soon as she looked at him. “Sorry. I don’t – I have a lot on right now. With the Snackbox and the tournament – it’s just all come at once.”

She sighed through her nose and lay her head down on the table. She hadn’t needed a silencing charm to work today. Most people were out enjoying the snow: Cedric had whisked Cho away for a dreamy afternoon skating on the Lake; Jem was on a revenge mission against her little brother, Jonathan, after he’d stuffed snow down her collar at breakfast that morning, and Anna had been dragged along to avoid a fully-fledged Ancient Runes-related meltdown. People only darted in every now and then to fetch a jumper or put their books away before running out. There were only a few others dotted around in odd corners.

“I bet this isn’t how you spent your OWLs Christmas.”

“Hardly.” He grinned. “You’ve read more in the last week than I did all last year.”

“And look how well that turned out.” The words were out before she’d really known she was saying them. She expected him to bite back but he just leaned back in his chair and looked at her. Like an invitation to keep going. And between this methodology that she was _never_ going to memorise and the fact that Fred had breezed right past talk of the Ball without so much as an eyebrow raised in her direction, she suddenly couldn’t stop herself.

“Some of us actually take our academics seriously.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Steady on. Where’s all this coming from?”

“I know you might find this hard to believe,” she started, and already the cumulative effect of far too much caffeine and far too little sunlight was on full display, “but it matters to me what I get in these mocks. What I get this year.”

“I know it does,” he said, levelling his gaze at her. She found it impossible to meet. She went on talking frantically to the oak table.

“And I’ve been spending way too much time on – other things –”

“Come off it.” He’d begun to raise his voice now, and a NEWT student buried deep in her revision shushed them. He dialled down the volume but not the intensity when he said, “You’ve kept up with everything all year. Merlin forbid you do something other than work.” He looked at her hard; wouldn’t stop until she looked at him as well. “You love the shop.”

“Of course I love the shop.” It was a given, a fact, like saying she had brown eyes. “But I’m not going to be able to rely on the shop for the rest of my life.”

“And why’s that?” He crossed his feet on the table. Suddenly she was infuriated by how easily he took up space in her common room, in her life, as if it were the most casual thing in the world to him, as if he could just as easily be anywhere else.

“Because you don’t take anything seriously,” she said, wiping hair out of her eyes. Since those words just glanced off the veneer of Fred Weasley – he’d heard a similar thing from McGonagall, Percy, and his mother, all within the last week – she added, just for good measure, “Including me.”

“Hey.” His feet came down off the table at lightning speed. He leaned forward. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” She was tearing up, could you _believe_ it. She was going to get marks all over her parchment. She wiped furiously at her eyes as she said, “You make me a partner in your business because I’m good at _naming things_ , you pester me at all hours of the night and think it’s funny when we get caught –”

“And I’m in here with you, right now,” he interrupted, jabbing a finger towards the windows looking onto the courtyard. “When half the school is mucking around in the snow, who am I in here with?”

“You have a flagrant disregard for me and my feelings –”

“Hey, I can use big words too, Ravenclaw.” They were standing now – she couldn’t remember when they’d stood up – and she stormed into an alcove to get away from the swearing seventh year, with Fred hot on her heels. He raked a hand through his hair until it stood up on all ends. “What are you talking about, disregard?”

“For goodness’ sake, Fred –”

“I think I have the right to know why you’re calling me a dickhead.”

“Phillipe,” she said abruptly. Swallowed the lump in her throat. Watched Fred’s eyes jump away from hers and settle somewhere over her shoulder. “You’ve been horrible about him. You’ve been horrible, when all he’s ever done is be nice to me.”

They glared at each other. Sophie was just about ready to pack it all in, say she was sorry and hadn’t meant any of it, when he started talking.

“I’m not here to talk about your boyfriend,” he said with a nasty glint in his eye. “But if you want to talk taking things seriously, Kincaid, you don’t have much of a leg to stand on.”

She began to protest but he cut her off.

“I came to you because I thought you could help with the rest of the Snackbox. I thought you could come up with a few more names. But you’ve developed a whole _line._ So fast, quicker than we can make them, but they’re _good._ And you _love_ it. And now you want to run away from it.”

“Getting my education is not _running away from it,_ ” she retorted, eyes blazing.

He nodded sharply. “No, it’s not. You should work hard. You like it and you’re good at it. What you’re not good at is lying, Kincaid. You can pretend the shop is just a bit of fun and you can stop whenever you want to, but you’re wrong. And you know you are.”

“You don’t get to tell me off for _pretending._ ”

Grinning up at her from the dining hall floor. Screaming for Cedric at the top of his lungs, clutching her to his chest and feeling his hot breath against her ear. Chucking ideas around with her until the early hours. But as soon as it came to the crunch point – nothing.

“You know I don’t like Phillipe.”

“I don’t know that,” he said, shrugging.

“Oh, come _off_ it.” It was now or never. All the feelings that she’d felt brewing inside of her for months. She would have to articulate the inarticulable; just _why_ had she felt it in the pit of her stomach last night when he’d pretended not to care about the dance?

“I have been – so overwhelmed. This whole year. With feelings I haven’t had before. I know you know what I’m talking about. I’m done with wasting time.”

She heard him let out a breath. “Hang on,” he started. “This is going too fast.” He bent down, tried to search her eyes, but she was already marching out of the alcove (stupid, what did she expect, dragging him into dark corners). “Let’s talk about this later –”

“I don’t want to talk about it later.” A gaggle of lower school students, easily distracted from warming themselves by the fire, took this to be a lovers’ tiff. They leaned over the back of the sofa to try and get a better view. “I’m tired of waiting for later. Now is all you get.”

“Sophie,” he said softly. He knew that would pull her up short. Had he ever called her that before?

Her breath hitched in her throat. “What do you want to say?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

“That’s what I thought.”

“No, wait a second.” He tried to take one of her hands, but she snatched it away, rifling through her papers (had she been working at that desk? It seemed like days ago). “I – I don’t know what I want to say, not exactly – I haven’t done this before –”

“Tough.” She thrust some parchment at him. Her preliminary thoughts on the _Mary Poppins_ range, with a hazy idea about something to do with an umbrella that helped you fly, designed for little kids before they moved onto brooms. Ideas they’d bounced off each other just last week, finishing each other’s sentences, taking each other’s trains of thought off the tracks and rerouting them entirely. And, after all that, he _didn’t know what to say._ “There. Now you’ve got what you want.”

He looked at her long and hard. “Is that all you think I want?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for no update yesterday - I got my results and I'm off to my dream university! Over the moon. I still have two months until I go off, which will hopefully be enough to finish off STIW (now I type it, that looks a lot like SPEW!) and start some work on the next instalment. Exciting times and happy reading!


	14. Cursing My Name (Wishing I'd Stayed)

It had been the most productive week of her life. The second Fred had left the common room, she’d taken a deep breath and sat back down to her abandoned Potions work. She managed three straight hours with only the most sparing of breaks before the others dragged her downstairs for dinner. She speared carrots to the rhythm of “ _pow_ dered _moon_ stone”, made up an acronym to remember the colour changes that had something to do with the gravy boat. She told the girls that night that something had happened but she didn’t want to talk about it and drew the curtains before they had a chance to reply. When she shut her eyes, she dreamed about disillusionment charms, her subconscious adamantly forbidding all night-time visits from redheads of any variety. It was eat, sleep, work, repeat. And it _sucked._

Not that she could admit that. Going from hours spent jabbering away with the boys and perusing the classics in the Ravenclaw library for inspiration to straight study was a shock to the senses. But letting on about that, even slightly, left a chink in the armour for more sympathetic thoughts to seep through – that maybe she _was_ being a coward, maybe the life she’d thought she’d lead since she joined this school was suddenly unviable, maybe she’d been a bit harsh that morning. And there was no time for that. There were mocks to sit, and she was going to ace them. Jem had taken to calling her ‘Das Machine’; not in entirely good spirit, but it was accurate. That night at prep, she was blitzing her way through her Herbology coursework as the girls looked on critically.

“This is an intervention,” said Jem, seizing her quill as Sophie tore off a new sheet of parchment. She lunged for it, but no luck; she had no chance of getting her quill back when three members of the Ravenclaw team were chucking it to one another artfully. “Seriously, Soph. It’s not healthy, the way you’re working.”

“Where have I heard that before?” she muttered to herself. Her eyes flickered - not even on purpose - to where Fred was, gossiping with his little brother’s friends. No one had ever accused him of working too hard. But then Sophie had _seen_ what Fred was really like, under the surface of irreverent joker that he projected to everybody else. She knew how hard he worked when it meant something to him.

The girls had followed her gaze. One look at Cho told Sophie she’d been rumbled.

“I really think you’d feel better if you talked to him,” she began, taking one of Sophie’s hands in hers. “You haven’t been yourself since you fought.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, grabbing her quill back and catching Anna unawares. “Mocks are almost over. It’s just a lot of pent-up stress.”

  
“It’s pent-up _something_ , all right,” said Anna, rolling her eyes. “Let the boy catch a break, Soph. He’s giving himself a crick in the neck, the way he’s looking at you.”

“Aren’t you meant to be on my side?” she retorted, but she snuck a look to check anyway. She just about caught Fred mid-glance, bending around the Slytherin table, not even noticing the ink blot spreading on his parchment. He stuck his head in a book quick as a flash (which might have been more convincing if the book hadn’t been upside down), but that didn’t stop George and Lee from eyeing her warily. She realised with a pang that they’d only heard Fred’s side of the story; that she lashed out at him out of nowhere, punishing him for daring to ask if she was okay. Wanting to know how he felt then not bothering to listen to the answer. It sounded so ridiculous when she put it like that.

“It’s not worth getting yourself in a state over,” Jem said, her voice rising until she was shushed unceremoniously by Professor Snape. She wrote the rest of what she had to say on the reverse of the parchment Sophie had been using for Herbology: _we’re upset that you’re upset. so talk to him you git._ In the hush that followed as Snape loomed over their workspace, not leaving until he saw Cho pick up her quill and write more than just her name and the title of her Arithmancy essay, they heard voices coming from the Gryffindor table.

“Why? Who are you taking?” Unmistakably Ron Weasley, nervous and defensive whenever the subject of conversation so much as alluded to ‘girls’. There were several rows of students whispering furiously to one another in between the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tables but she could feel Fred’s eyes on her through them all. Cho gave her a swift kick under the table, but still she didn’t look up – as if this were the most engrossing report on Gillyweed anyone had ever written. By the time she’d deemed it safe to look, Fred had screwed up some waste parchment and chucked it a few seats up.

“ _Shit_ ,” whispered Cho. Jem and Anna swivelled round at breakneck speed. Their movement caught the attention of Lee, who raised his eyebrows and mouthed back another expletive, but Fred was undeterred. His attention was fixed on Angelina Johnson, Gryffindor Chaser, with whom Sophie had probably exchanged five words in as many years. Commanding. Pretty.

Fred went through the whole charade, pointing first at Angelina, then imitating a waltz, then pointing back at himself. His audience – his little brother and Harry, desperate for tips; Hermione Granger, rolling her eyes; four seething Ravenclaws, three staring unabashedly and one trying to pretend she wasn’t watching – waited on the edge of their seats. Quickly conferring with her friends, Angelina looked back at Fred. She nodded, smiling slightly.

The look Sophie gave her coursework could have burned a hole through the table. She hadn’t cried all week. She was _not_ going to start now.

“That little shit,” spat Jem, halfway out of her seat to give him a piece of her mind before Annabelle yanked her back down again. She reached a hand across the table to Sophie.

“We get out in ten minutes,” said Anna, uncharacteristically softly. “That’s all you have to last. You’re doing really well.” Somehow, from the undisputed queen of bottling up her emotions and having one major meltdown per term, the words weren’t all that soothing.

She allowed herself the comfort blanket of holding onto Anna’s hand (which she squeezed to within an inch of its life) as she wrote the most detailed, beautifully illustrated Herbology coursework first draft that Hogwarts had ever seen.

When Snape dismissed them, the rest of the students scrambled out as quickly as possible to make it in time for early tea. Sophie took her time, packing each item neatly into her satchel. Fred was lingering. Of course he was. The girls formed a protective bubble around her, Jem spearheading with Cho and Anna linking each of her arms, but he managed to get to the door at the exact same time anyway.

“Kincaid,” he started, but she swept past without even looking at him.

Cho, hopeless romantic that she was, couldn’t help but be moved by the picture of Fred deflated in the doorway, flanked by George and Lee. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to him?” she cajoled but trailed off when Sophie shook her head and dislodged herself from their grasp.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._ Stupid for thinking she could chew him out in the common room and he’d be waiting for her when she came to her senses. Stupid for getting so worked up in the first place. Stupid for not resolving things as soon as she’d felt that twinge of guilt. Because now it was too late. She looked at Angelina Johnson – leggy, funny Angelina Johnson – and wanted to hurt Fred just as much as he’d hurt her.

“I’m going for a walk before dinner,” she said, wrapping her arms tightly around herself in anticipation of the cold. “Save me a space.”

“Where are you going?” Anna looked like she knew already, narrowing her eyes.

Sophie figured she may as well just bite the bullet. “I’m going to ask Phillipe to the Yule Ball.”

Never had a supportive group of friends looked more disappointed that one of their own was going to snag a beautiful Frenchman. Cho began to finger-comb her hair, moments away from stress-plaiting.

“Is that a good idea, Soph?” asked Jem.

She knew it wasn’t. They all knew it wasn’t. Any one of the portraits enjoying their pre-dinner sherry would have told her she was acting the fool. But the part of her that she’d shut off for a week since their argument had come loose and was desperate to wreak some damage. There was no stopping her as she marched down to the Beauxbatons ship, shaking her hair out from her ponytail and swearing at the cold.

When she knocked at the door, a gaggle of little girls answered, just as giggly as their Hogwarts counterparts but with much glossier skin.

“Er,” she started, “is Phillipe around?” She realised with a jolt of embarrassment that she didn’t even know his surname. Half of Beauxbatons’ male population must share that name, so she had to settle for, “In seventh year? About this high?”

One of the girls darted out of sight up a spiral staircase. She snuck a look at the interior of the ship, lots of beautiful exposed woodwork set against ornate tapestries depicting the history of the school. Phillipe descended the stairs with all the elegance of a visiting dignitary, smiling as he saw her.

“ _Bonne nuit,_ ” he said, waving his hands at the girls in a motion which Sophie took to be universal sign language for ‘scram’.

The sky was riddled with stars. A breeze fanned out her hair and made her look vaguely presentable. She was standing by a lake with a truly gorgeous man, whose sheer elegance made her want to stand up straighter and remember all her mother had taught her about deportment. Her heart should have been singing.

“Sasha said you wanted to ask me something,” he prompted.

“Yes. I –” Her heart almost prevailed. She considered asking him for a book recommendation or something equally inane. But then she remembered feeling like she’d been punched in the gut by Angelina’s happy smile. It was something more primal, more jealous than her heart that led her to say, “I wanted to know if you’d like to come with me. To the Ball.”

She hardly registered him saying yes, kissing her hand with that old-world gentility. The laughter of Sasha and her gang of tiny friends, over the moon to be in a foreign country together, the same way she and her friends would have been, barely reached her ears. Sophie walked back up to the castle in a haze. She couldn’t face dinner. _My fault, my fault, my fault,_ her brain insisted with every step. She’d never thought she’d miss the white noise of Potions methods running on a loop. She stumbled into the dormitory, and that was where the girls found her a few minutes later, skipping dessert to search her out. And as Jem hugged her tight, smoothing back her hair, Sophie finally allowed herself to cry and cry and cry.


	15. It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn

After twenty minutes of semi-coherent rambling (“he read _Alice”_ – “I was just so _tired_ ” – “his _arms_ ”), all through intermittent sobs, Sophie finally got the whole story out. Girl meets boy, girl likes boy, girl loses boy because of stress, shouting and a sleek Frenchman. She took a shaky breath, rubbed her eyes. Wondered how long it would take one of them to say, ‘I told you so’.

“Baby,” cooed Jem, stroking flyaway hairs out of her face. “We knew.”

Sophie hiccupped miserably. “Really?”

“Well. Not that you’d gone off on him over a snowball fight,” said Cho with a sympathetic smile. “But that you liked him. Ever since the first Hogsmeade day.”

“Please,” said Anna, rolling her eyes. “Since you came back at the World Cup after twenty minutes with lukewarm Butterbeers –”

“And a fuck-off grin on your face,” finished Jem fondly. “You’re hardly subtle.”

Sophie groaned, rolling off Jem and flopping onto her back. The girls all piled onto her four-poster as she stared upside-down at the stars, hoping they might have written out what she should do next.

“It’s all such a mess,” she said, flinging her wrist over her eyes. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“Hardly,” said Cho, rolling onto her stomach. “You shouldn’t have said the things you said. Not that you didn’t mean them. You just could have said it another way. But it's hardly irreversible.”

Images flashed through her mind. Fred and Angelina descending the stairs together at the Ball, laughing at some private joke. Fred and Angelina, spending all their time together in the Gryffindor common room. Angelina, comforting Fred after some dickhead Ravenclaw in the year below shouted at him for having the audacity to check in on her.

“I can’t take it back now,” she said, adding hopelessly, “She’s probably better for him, anyway.” She was immediately hit in the face with a cushion by Anna.

“Get a grip,” she said sternly. She sat up on her haunches and loomed over her, continuing to pummel Sophie with the pillow. She made her voice heard over giggles and squeals: “Why on Earth would she be better for him?”

Silence for a moment. Then, “She’s in his house,” she said lamely. “In his year.”

“So’s _Kenneth Towler,_ ” said Anna scathingly. “Does that make him Fred’s dream man?” The girls shivered, remembering the apocryphal story of Fred sneaking Bulbadox powder into Kenneth’s pyjamas (in fairness, it was right after he’d poked fun at Oliver Wood’s acne, so it was an act of retribution, and more than justified).

Either way, Sophie could see she was going to have to dig deeper than that. “She’s more outgoing. And she’s known him for longer.” She was fixed with a hard stare by Anna before she came out with, “And she hasn’t humiliated him in front of a bunch of first years in recent history.”

“That wasn’t your finest moment,” conceded Cho.

“She’s just more similar to him,” Sophie concluded, surprised to be hit by the pillow once more, this tine wielded by Jem.

“He’s an identical twin, idiot,” she said gleefully (she’d always been the instigator of pillow fights in their younger years). “I think he’s looking for a bit of variety.”

“He doesn’t want _similar,_ ” said Anna simply. “He wants you. He just doesn’t know how to say it yet.”

Sophie let out a watery laugh. She was struck by how much better she already felt just talking to the girls about it. Even if their therapy methods weren’t exactly orthodox, there was nothing like a thump with a pillow to snap you out of a defeatist spiral. Cho wriggled up so she was sitting cross-legged.

“He’s going with Angelina now. And you can’t change that. But you should talk to Phillipe.”

Poor Phillipe. Caught in the crossfire of two idiots who would have saved themselves and others a lot of effort if they’d been able to get over themselves and talk to each other. Or if she hadn’t missed out on spaghetti Bolognese to accost him at the Beauxbatons ship. She remembered that as she steeled herself to speak to him the following morning. With only days to go until the ball, many of the younger students from Hogwarts had gone home for the holidays, leaving ample space in the dining hall for the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations. Phillipe and his friends were laughing just a few seats up from them. 

Sophie had always been terrible with this sort of thing. She found it nigh on impossible to hold her tongue – once there was something she needed to say, she had to go ahead and say it. She managed three bites of a croissant (the house elves were enjoying branching out to different styles of cuisine, although their bouillabaisse was still a bit lumpy) before she stopped Phillipe mid-morning pleasantry and blurted, “Could we talk?”

Jem and Anna did a sterling job of pretending they weren’t listening, fashioning hats out of the enchanted tinsel, as Sophie led Phillipe to a secluded corner next to the door. The dread in the pit of her stomach kept her from noticing Fred’s eyes, which had latched onto the pair of them the second she stood up.

She dragged Phillipe in next to the plinth bearing the juice options and looked up at him. He was so very tall. “Listen. I wasn’t completely fair to you last night. There’s some stuff going on that you don’t know about.”

To her surprise, he’d begun to smile wryly, rocking back on his feet like he’d expected this along. “Ah,” he said. Such a tiny exhalation which seemed to say it all.  
She carried on regardless. “I’m worried I gave you the wrong impression.” Merlin, this was the most drawn-out apology she’d ever had to give. Was the language barrier particularly impenetrable this morning? “I was in a weird place. But I’d still really like to go to the ball with you. As friends. If that’s okay.”

He took her hands in his and grinned down at her, lazy and lopsided. Back at the Gryffindor table, Fred was breaking his neck trying to get a closer look, but humiliation kept her eyes pinned on Phillipe.

“ _Bien sûr_ ,” he said. “Friends is good.”

She sighed in relief. As easy as that! She’d have to go and tell Cho the good news, life really _was_ made simpler when you just spoke to people –

“I was surprised when you asked me,” he was saying. “You have a boyfriend, no?”

She dropped his hand like she’d been scalded. “No. I – no. What made you think that?”  
Now it was Phillipe’s turn to look embarrassed. His right hand clutched the nape of his neck (he really was _sickeningly_ attractive, her fourteen-year-old self would have a fit if she could see what Future Sophie was turning down). “You are always with that redhead boy,” he said, scanning the throngs of diners until he found Fred, whose eyes leaped away from them the second he was spotted.

“Well,” she said, knowing how red she must be going in this moment. “No. He’s not.”

Even as she left the conversation on excellent terms, promising to send Phillipe in the direction of Marietta on the night, who’d been talking him up no end, the pit in her stomach persisted. If Phillipe had thought they were together without saying more than two words to Fred, and Anna had picked up on her feelings long before she knew she had them, who else had drawn the same conclusion? And if everyone who was anyone knew, what had been stopping Fred? She couldn’t shake the feeling that pitying eyes were on her as she slotted back into place with the girls. Cho had arrived, looking about as tortured as Sophie felt.

“What’s the matter, honey?” asked Jem, buttering her toast. Cho shushed her, whipping her head around to make sure Cedric was preoccupied.

“Harry Potter just asked me to the ball,” she said miserably. Sophie couldn’t help but laugh. Although Harry seemed to be very much in his awkward phase from what she’d heard, hardly more successful with the ladies than Ron had been with Professor McGonagall, there were still scores of girls at Hogwarts who would kill to be asked by him.

“I felt awful,” Cho moaned. “I didn’t know what to say. I just told him I was already going with someone but it was really nice of him to ask.”

Jem let out peals of laughter. “The state of you two,” she declared, pointing her butter knife at Cho and Sophie. “Cho turning down the Chosen One, Soph immediately reneging on her invitation to French Adonis –”

“At least I’m going with a legal adult,” said Cho in mock outrage. “Unlike someone we know.”

Jem’s laughter grew hysterical as Anna fixed Cho with a murderous look.

“Okay, I _really_ feel like I’m missing something,” Sophie said. Unable to listen to her reputation go up in flames, Anna stalked off to get more orange juice, with Jem’s hoots ringing in her ears.

Cho’s smile had been restored as she explained. “You know how Anna’s always saying she’s not going to waste herself on boys our age?”

Sophie nodded impatiently. This was Grade One Annabelle Armstrong information.

“Well, Dumbledore told Madame Maxine who told Hagrid who accidentally let it slip in Care of Magical Creatures that the Weird Sisters are going to be performing on Sunday.”

“ _Shut up,_ ” Sophie shouted, physically incapable of stopping herself. Cho shushed her furiously, insisting that Hagrid had sworn their class to secrecy, but Sophie was still in deep shock. The Weird Sisters had been _their band._ The first wizarding music Jemima had ever shown them in their first-year dormitory, welcoming them into a whole new world. They’d dispelled homesickness by blasting _Do the Hippogriff_ at top volume and learning the dance routine together. And now they might actually get to see them live.

“And because Anna is a Weird Sisters fan first and human second, she wasn’t going to go with anyone. Just focus on the music.”

“Where’s the legal adult bit in all this?” Sophie asked as Annabelle slunk back into her seat. The juxtaposition of stories about her rabid groupie side and the impervious image she was trying to project couldn’t have been further apart.

“But then – this is when you were down at the boat,” added Cho, and Sophie wondered briefly how she could possibly have missed so much in that brief half hour – “Jem’s brother comes to see us.”

“ _Jonathan?_ ” cried Sophie, incredulous. Jonathan was a skinny little third year whose love-hate relationship with his big sister veered overwhelmingly towards the hate side (they’d both been given detention for screaming obscenities to each other at the Gryffindor verses Ravenclaw game last summer – Quidditch was the one thing bound to rile up a Liu). He was currently engaged in a sausage-eating contest with his friends on the other side of the hall.

“He’s whining about how he really wants to go to the ball –”

“And I said I’m not taking him because that’s incestuous,” interrupted Jem, her mouth full of toast.

“So he wants one of us to take him,” Cho continued, grinning at Anna, who’d begun to hit her head against the table. “And I said I was going with Ced and you were on your way to ask someone. But Anna –”

“ _Look_.” Anna tried her best to look like she was taking the moral high ground. “I was trying to do a nice thing for _your_ little brother.” Jem had reached a state of laughter so acute she was no longer making any sound, just wheezing. “I don’t want to go with anyone else –”

“And Jonathan just has that kind of fresh-faced appeal?” mimicked Sophie, her laughs turning into squeals as her feet were stomped on hard.

“The thing is," said Cho, licking peanut butter off her finger, "one of Jonathan's tiny friends _knows_ the bassist. Donaghan Trummle is his cousin or something.”

“Tremlett,” corrected Anna automatically. "Donaghan Tremlett."

“So Jonathan has said if Anna takes him, he’ll find a way for her to meet the band.”

“You make it sound like I’m pimping myself out or something,” Anna whined. “I’m being _nice._ He’s doing me a favour, I’m doing him a favour.” The sentiment was critically undermined by her furious delivery. Jem grabbed Anna’s head in her hands and kissed it all over, declaring at the top of her lungs what a marvellous and selfless sister-in-law she had.

“Sorry to interrupt the love-in, ladies.” George’s head was suddenly perched on Sophie’s shoulder like a ginger parrot. “But can we borrow Sophie for a minute?”  
Swinging round, half-expecting to see Fred, she saw Lee raise his hand in greeting beside the main staircase. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed as she shoved the remains of the pain au chocolat into her mouth.

“By the way, Armstrong,” called George as they walked away. “We hear congratulations are in order. You’d been waiting on Mr. Right all this time, and it turns out he just hadn’t been born yet.”

Annabelle shouted some half-hearted expletives at their retreating figures.

Sophie raised an eyebrow as the boys ushered her into a broom cupboard. Everyone knew what people got up to in broom cupboards. Cho had had enough close calls coming out of this very storeroom after stolen moments with Cedric for the girls to designate them as rooms of ill repute.

“Get over yourself, Kincaid,” said Lee light-heartedly. “We’re not here to make love to you.” To her surprise, they felt their way through the collection of Cleansweeps until they found a familiar alcove. George dug out a few sketches and thrust them into her hands.

“How often are you lot in here?” she said, her voice trailing off as she saw what she was looking at. Diagrams, fabric swatches, stupid notes scribbled to one another on the torn edges of the parchment, with a great big all-purpose magical handbag in the centre. At the top, in Fred’s distinctive, narrow hand-writing – ‘The Mary’.

“Is it what you were thinking?” George prompted. “We had to ask Hermione what it looked like. We didn’t get _Mary Poppins._ ”

“I don’t…” She couldn’t finish. This was so like the boys. While she’d been seething and beating herself up and doing anything but focusing on those all-important OWLs, they’d been making. Doing. “You guys developed this one fast.”  
Lee developed a sudden, pertinent interest in the floor. “Well. Once Fred had the idea in his head…” He trailed off, waiting until she turned over the parchment. There were at least a dozen bullet points of future products; ‘spoonful of sugar’, the powder which made any unpalatable dish suddenly much sweeter and richer; ‘Flying for toddlers?’ together with a note to look up the story of Icarus, which made her laugh. So many ideas crammed onto that one sheet; so many more ideas which must be burgeoning in his mind, tucked away in hidden corners, waiting to bloom at the right moment.

“Do you like it?” Something about the two of them in the doorway was so adorable, the boys who would never grow up looking at her with these great big eyes. She had a flash of a memory from her first days at Hogwarts, hearing the twins roar with laughter at something Peeves did and a chill going down her spine. How careless they’d seemed, how inaccessible. And now: “We couldn’t get the exact pink,” with a curling, mischievous smile, “but that’s ‘cos we tore it off Lee’s mum’s cushion. We could probably order something in.”

“It’s good,” she said at last. “What kind of charms are you thinking?”

George launched into a detailed description of how you could pack up your whole life and store it in the bag, from scraps of notepaper to a broomstick to a kitchen table. Before she knew it, they were sitting cross-legged on the floor, shooting ideas back and forth, questioning whether it was more important that the bag could store inordinately big objects (“no one needs a car in their magic handbag,” she said, cutting Lee off) or hundreds upon hundreds of little ones. It had scarcely been a week since their last product meeting and Sophie was surprised by how much she’d missed it. Missed them.

“Thank you,” she found herself saying. “For coming to get me.”

“Of course,” said Lee, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re not going to decide anything without you.”

It struck her as they piled out of the broom cupboard, George pulling a spider out of her hair and dangling it in Sophie’s face, that she’d never had such close male friends before. In the space of a few short months, they’d gone from people she hardly ever spoke to, to partners she could tell anything.

“I am coming back, you know,” she said, face lit by the glow of the candles adorning the enormous Christmas tree. “Just haven’t figured out the right way. To talk about it, I mean.”

“We know,” said Lee. Then, with a smile, “He’s finding it tough, too.”

“He’s never experienced so many emotions at once,” George quipped. “His heart’s given out.”

They dropped her back to the girls with obsequious bows, offering their congratulations to the Ice Queen Annabelle and her Boy King, which earned them cackles from Cho and Jem and even a begrudging, spluttering laugh from Anna. They were ridiculous. She loved them so much. How stupid to think she could ever give them up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra long chapter today! I'm going to take a few days off to get ahead with the story because I don't want to run out (in writing terms, I'm up to just after the second task) but I'll be back before you know it. Love and light to you all xxx


	16. I'm A Little Bit Lost Without You (And I'm A Bloody Big Mess Inside)

Annabelle had only gone to prep because she had nothing better to do. Exhausted from a long fortnight of penning essay after essay, Cho, Jem and Sophie had all fallen asleep in the dorm, just minutes after planning the major bender they should go on to celebrate. Not feeling sleepy so much as drained, Anna had decided to sit and doodle, drawing swirling patterns over her sheets of parchment like the ones that decorated the top of her four-poster canopy. Even future cursebreakers had to have a hobby. She was midway through a debate with herself about whether she ought to paint this later on or leave it black and white when her nose was skinned by a paper airplane.

She looked up. Professor Sprout, a notoriously lacklustre disciplinarian, was on patrol, so it wouldn’t have surprised her if it had been some of Jonathan’s idiot friends trying their luck with his new ‘girlfriend’ (she was regretting that act of kindness more every single day). But the culprit soon identified himself by chucking over another parchment ball, not even bothering to fold it anymore. As Anna did whenever she was minorly inconvenienced, unwillingly amused, or bottling up emotion (so almost every second of every day), she rolled her eyes. Fred moved stealthily from the Gryffindor table when Sprout’s back was turned to sit opposite her. He had the good grace to look slightly ashamed of himself.

“Sorry about all the parchment,” he said. “You looked pretty engrossed. Didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

“Yes,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “You couldn’t have just called my name like a normal person.”

“Wanted to spice things up a bit.”  
“Because that went so well for you last time.”

Fred reddened and screwed up the remains of parchment still in his hand, following her gaze to the spot at the table behind them where he’d pelted Angelina with similar missives the afternoon before. “Can I talk to you about that?”  
  


Anna considered. There was no good reason not to. Sophie might still have been ducking behind her hair whenever she saw him coming, alleging that she didn’t want to speak to him until she knew exactly what she wanted to say, but there had been no official embargo on talking to Fred for the rest of them. She could carry on sketching later, after all, and Professor Sprout wasn’t likely to give them anything but the laziest telling-off if their voices rose too loud. She took her chin in her hands and nodded. “Go on, then.”

Fred sat back, as though he hadn’t imagined he’d get this far. Tentatively, he said, “I don’t really know what she’s thinking.”  
 _Probably because you haven’t asked her,_ Annabelle thought to herself, but raised her eyebrows as an invitation to keep going.

“It all came out of nowhere.”

Yes. It probably did seem like that to two people fundamentally incapable of reading the room. She held her tongue. Didn’t mention her best friend’s inherent fear of going out on a limb; how Sophie thought looking over in someone’s direction twice at one brunch was flirting, and upwards of three times was borderline scandalous. Just let him talk it out.

“I’ve never had to do any of this before,” he said, sounding uncannily like his little brother. “Girls, I mean. One minute I was trying to get her to take a break and the next thing I knew she’d kicked me out. I tried to talk to Liu,” he admitted. “But she wasn’t having any of it.”

Anna snorted. She’d heard about Fred weaving through the crowds coming out of dinner, playing cat and mouse with Jem, who’d seen him out of the corner of her eye and was trying her hardest to pretend she hadn’t as she steamrolled in the direction of the common room.

“Jem isn’t really one for a heart-to-heart,” she admitted. But neither was she. Years cultivating her cool-girl persona (she’d made up her mind aged eleven that she’d never stare at the wizarding world with the same open-mouthed awe as her mother) meant that she wasn’t most people’s first choice for a deep chat.

“I just want to know how she is,” he finished, looking singularly pathetic in last year’s threadbare Christmas jumper. She bit back her urge to tell him to patch up the holes on the elbows and took pity.

“She’s not great,” she said honestly. “She hasn’t wanted to talk about it much. Especially after your stunt yesterday.”

“It’s not like Ang was my first choice,” Fred burst out, sinking further down into his seat to avoid Sprout’s gaze. Anna gave him a withering look that could have shrivelled a Devil’s Snare. “I probably could have gone about it differently.”

It was funny, seeing a deflated Weasley twin. It was like a lead balloon; something normally so buoyant sunk right down to Earth. Calculating whether it was nobler in the mind to stay out of this not-lovers’ tiff or to nip any further communication issues in the bud, she decided to put him out of his misery. With all the briskness of a surgeon, or particularly stern headmistress, she told him: “She asked that Beauxbatons boy after you did that.”

Fred’s jaw set as he began to tear viciously, apparently unconsciously, at the airplane he’d sent over, fraying it at the edges.

Anna had never had much patience with that sort of thing. “Be reasonable. Don’t you think Sophie should get to enjoy herself after a pretty shitty week?”

“Of course she should,” he said quietly. It was partly because there was something so amusing about seeing the other side of this six-foot child, sulky, for once, rather than scheming, that her voice softened.

“Well. You can have fun with Angelina, and she’ll have fun with Patrice.”  
“Phillipe.”  
“Whatever.” She really had forgotten his name. He was gorgeous, indisputably, but all these foreign boys seemed to be. Anna wondered for a moment whether it was just the novelty factor; whether the Norwegian or Spanish girls lusted over the Hogwarts boys in the same way. Spying Jonathan beside himself with giggles at having drawn penises all over his unwitting classmate’s essay, she shook her head vehemently. No. The Hogwarts boys were a law unto themselves. Including trouble-making twins who could sell algae to a grindylow but froze up when they were asked how they _really felt._

“You’re both being idiots, you know,” she told him, characteristically blunt as they packed their things away. “She’s besotted with you. You know she is.”

Fred didn’t say anything, scuffing the stones with his foot. It was one of the first interactions she’d had with a Weasley twin where they hadn’t made some ridiculous jibe about the Ravenclaw line-up. Or, in more recent times, tried to flog a new product to her, smoothly skipping over the detail that Lee Jordan’s nose still wasn’t quite the same. Poor old lead balloon.

“If you want my advice,” she began, every inch the seasoned pro for someone whose most substantial romantic interaction was a quick snog at an end-of-term party, “find her tomorrow night. And _talk to her._ You’ll save the rest of us a lot of aggro.”

“I don’t know if she wants to talk to me right now,” he said to his shoes, as the sound of the Frog Choir warming up in the great hall floated down the corridor.

“Why do you think she asked Patrice? She’s trying to prod you into action. Carpe diem, Weasley. Whatever happened to all that daring, nerve and chivalry?”

He gave her the very beginnings of a smile. They both knew how tonight was going to pan out. They needed to return to their respective common rooms, pick up their respective gaggles of friends. Anna was in for a long half hour of yearning glances being tossed between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables. She considered setting up some kind of betting circle. Who would look over first? Who would drop their fork accidentally on purpose to stare at the other in private? Who would give themselves a needless, stress-induced migraine, on Christmas Eve of all days?

“Good counsel, Armstrong,” he called over his shoulder, almost backing into the gigantic Christmas tree but rounding the corner at just the right moment. Say what you will about the Weasley twins, but they had damned good spatial awareness. “You should think about doing this professionally.”

 _Deal with such stupidity on a daily basis?_ Anna thought incredulously to herself as one of the star-crossed lovers disappeared off down the corridor, more of a spring in his step than there’d been in the last two weeks. She wouldn’t last a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell Anna is my favourite? I just want to wrap her up in an enormous hug and tell her not to roll her eyes so much or she'll strain them. Hope you enjoyed this slight departure from Sophie's headspace - sometimes what you really need is a totally not impartial third party to whack you into action. Hope you enjoy and thank you for all your feedback!


	17. You Should Be Here With Me (Baby, Please Come Home)

Even before ‘magic’ was a word that held any especial significance in their house, Christmas had always been the most magical time of the year. The Highlands were carpeted with snow (not exactly unusual for December in Scotland, but it seemed more romantic on Christmas Day) and Michael laid enormous fires in every downstairs room while Sophie opened her presents. Her grandfather would call to speak to her and be transformed within seconds; from the gruff-voiced patriarch who sniped down the phone to his son-in-law (still not totally forgiven, all these years later) to the man who cooed down the line to his granddaughter and wanted to hear all about what Father Christmas had brought. At one o’clock, everyone in the village – twenty or so elderly Scotsmen, the odd widow – would knock on their door for Christmas lunch. Louisa would be hideously stressed trying to roast off the turkey in time (and loving every second – she thrived in a crisis) and would send Sophie out to entertain. She’d spin stories about having heard the reindeer at midnight and win the prize inside every cracker she pulled (it wasn’t totally a fair fight – octogenarians don’t have the best bone strength).

A Hogwarts Christmas was still magical in its own way – after all, her Christmas tree had never been charmed so the needles fell perfectly just in time for the big day. And after years of being the only child about for miles and miles, there was something wonderful about waking up to the girls piled onto the mattress beside her.

“Merry Christmas,” said Cho sleepily, her hair fanned out across the pillow; Sophie had to spit some of the strands out of her mouth. Anna was looking unusually mild, sporting several pairs of bed-socks (“you’d think a magical castle would know better than to go in for single-glazed windows”). Jem had taken to singing seasonal classics in the shower the last week or so and was just finishing up a pitchy but passionate ‘White Christmas’ as Sophie came to.

In the early hours of the morning – eight o’clock was supremely early for a Sunday – they exchanged presents. From Jem, a new lipstick she’d had sent over from Singapore, charmed to stay on all day long without smudging (“and _super_ pigmented”). Cho had asked her parents to mail up a copy of _Captain Corelli’s Mandolin,_ the Muggle literary sensation of the year. Anna always did homemade presents, though how she managed to make them without getting spotted was the biggest mystery of all; she had painted a satirical version of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, with Jem front and centre with a shock of white hair, Cho as the little dormouse, Sophie as the March Hare, and herself as Alice, looking bemusedly at her bonkers friends.

“I love it.” Sophie resolved to add a postscript to her next letter home and ask them to send up a frame so it could hang beside her bed. Anna glowed happily, a combination of praise and overheating from all the socks. Sophie had already opened her card from her parents, which contained good will from all their men – old Angus asked to be remembered to wee Sophie and to tell her his grandchildren had been skating on the lake the same way she used to when she was little. She slid the package the owl had dropped off that morning (now there was a feat on par with Father Christmas’ sleigh – how all the owls managed to drop off their gifts just in time for waking up) onto her bed.

“Posh box,” said Jem approvingly. Her mother was known for her beautiful gift-wrapping, just one of those skills that high society girls pick up, and Sophie tossed Anna the black velvet ribbon to wear in her hair. But if they’d thought that was beautiful, they’d seen nothing yet.

Under layers of gossamer-thin tissue paper was a dress.

“ _The_ dress,” corrected Cho in reverent tones. “I forgot she was sending you this.”

While Louisa Kincaid had been quite pleased to do away with a lot of the strict traditions of her life and let her daughter roam free in the forest, it always made her slightly misty-eyed that she’d never get to throw her daughter a proper (read: unbelievably extravagant) coming-of-age party. The Yule Ball was the closest thing she’d ever get, and she’d insisted on sending Sophie one of her old dresses to wear on the night as a Christmas present. Carefully, Sophie lifted it out of the box and held it up.

“Soph,” breathed Anna, hardly daring to stroke the fabric. “It’s _gorgeous._ ”

It was ruby red, one shouldered, made of a sort of flowy, Grecian material. It was gathered at the waist and then fell down in floaty layers past her feet. Holding the dress up against herself in the mirror, it looked impossibly elegant against her snowman pyjamas. It reminded her a bit of a phoenix; of something a goddess might wear.

“What else has your mum got tucked away in that dressing room?” asked Jem, inspecting the garnet earrings Louisa had enclosed as an extra surprise. “And is she my size?”

They spent an impossibly lazy morning together, whisking their full English out of the dining hall and eating it cross-legged on the common room sofas. They heckled the impromptu pantomime put on by the prefects for the first years – Cho made a very strapping Dick Whittington, using some of Anna’s bed socks as knee-high boots. It was like something out of a storybook, something her eight-year-old self, looking around at a room filled with garrulous Scotsmen and her parents, would never have believed she’d get to experience. By three, Sophie never wanted to see a plate of pigs in blankets again, and people began to peel out of the common room up to their dormitories.

“Already?” said Sophie through her Christmas pudding, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as Cho dragged her upstairs.

“I have to get to Cedric’s for six,” she said, eyes dancing. “And Anna’s going to take an age.”

The plumbing system of an eleventh-century castle was not built for hundreds of students at once and the shower rattled disconcertingly as she turned it on. As a prelude to the night’s entertainment, Jem had whacked on The Weird Sisters’ debut album, the one they’d made in their seventh year at Hogwarts, with the album cover shot on the astronomy tower. Sophie remembered thinking that was desperately cool when they were younger, that she walked the same hallowed halls as men with artfully torn robes and rasping voices, scorning the veela lover who’d done them wrong.

“You never said who you were going with, Jem,” she called behind her as she began work on her make-up. Jem wheeled around, brandishing her eyelash curler.

“Durmstrang boy,” she said vaguely. “Doesn’t speak much English apart from Quidditch stuff. We had a long chat about Krum and then he asked me.”

“Sounds like the perfect man,” said Anna drily, emerging from the bathroom.

“Annabelle _Armstrong!_ ” said Cho in shocked tones. “Where is the rest of your dress?”

“Oh, shut up,” Anna retorted, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. It was a good thing the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw weren’t here to cry ‘shame!’. Her dress was strappy and black, with gold details that looked almost like safety pins holding it together at the sides. Her wavy amber hair, usually piled up on top of her head when she was working, had been let loose. She was still halfway through the eyeshadow – she’d only popped out to get a make-up wipe – but the effect was stunning, all the same.

“Liz Hurley, eat your heart out,” Sophie declared. “This is your mother all over.”

Henrietta was a Hugh Grant superfan. Most of Anna’s summer holiday that year had been spent pouring over pictures from the _Four Weddings_ premiere (and Grant’s girlfriend’s spectacular dress that Anna was channelling) and contemplating a silencing charm when her mother settled down to watch the film for the fourth evening in a row. But one good thing had come out of this obsession – her daughter looked like an absolute knock-out.

“Jonathan is going to have a heart attack when he sees you.” Cho giggled. “He may be just a little boy, but you’re _all_ woman.”

Anna threatened to tear the whole thing off and wear her multiple bed-socks if they didn’t shut up. Somehow, watching her smile at herself in the mirror and put on the last of her mascara, Sophie didn’t quite believe her.

“Ten to six,” said Cho, pulling loose some tendrils to frame her face. “I’m going to go find Ced.”

While there weren’t any special considerations for the dates of champions – “a travesty,” alleged Jem, “they should be doing interviews and photo calls and all sorts” – she’d promised Cedric that she’d come to the Hufflepuff common room early so they could practise that dance one last time. Sophie felt a small pang as she watched her friend go, resplendent in cream and pink, looking like a swan princess. Her melancholia didn’t last long. The next hour was spent speed-painting each other’s nails, flapping their hands about madly, even thrusting them out into the freezing cold to dry quicker, so that they’d be ready to go downstairs for quarter to seven.

Sophie felt like a queen, or at the very least some kind of minor royal, as she went down to the common room. Jem looked unusually elegant in royal blue, with a daring neckline and gold swirls. Her demure entrance didn’t last – she cackled at Jonathan, hair all spiked up like a shark, as he waited for the most reluctant ball date of all time. It was impossible not to laugh as Anna stood next to her scrawny escort, miserable frown the only thing marring her perfect appearance.

“Now, Jonathan,” said Jem sternly, looking up at him (even in her heels, her brother had a few inches on her), “what do you say to Auntie Anna for agreeing to take you?”  
“Pack it in,” Anna grumbled. She gave Jonathan a warning look that stopped his snickering friends in their tracks. She may have known the little git since he was nine years old, but that didn’t mean she was going to go easy on him. “Remember I’m doing you a favour, Jonathan. As soon as we get inside, you –”

“I scram,” he finished, the same cheeky look on his face as his sister. “I remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feels weird to be writing a Christmas chapter in August, especially when today is the sunniest it's been in a while! Today's title is from 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)', one of the top tracks on the Bublé album, The last few have been 'Jessie's Girl' (rise up Glee nation), 'exile' by Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver, 'my tears ricochet' by Taylor Swift, 'Shake It Out' by Florence and the Machine, and 'This Ain't A Love Song' by Scouting for Girls. The next chapters are, of course, about the Yule Ball, but probably split into two or three updates. Enjoy!


	18. Just Say You Feel The Way That I Feel

She was going to get frostbite. She was going to get frostbite, and then she’d _never_ get to see the Weird Sisters live. Admittedly, her gauzy evening gown wasn’t the most practical thing, but she wasn’t trying to scale a snow-capped mountain, just stroll down to the Beauxbatons boat. Sophie thought longingly of candelabras and Butterbeer fountains as she waited, shivering, for Phillipe. She’d felt so guilty after letting him down in the dining hall that she’d have said yes to anything he wanted; so when he asked if she’d mind going in a bigger group of Beauxbatons students, she’d fallen over herself to oblige. Of course she’d meet them at their quarters; nothing would bring her greater joy. She didn’t feel so joyous now – in fact, she could feel her liquid eyeliner turning into icicles. But soon enough, there he was, looking unspeakably handsome in robes of dark green, and her knees went weak with the thought of just how _nice_ he was being to her.

He introduced her to his friends, most of whom she’d seen at the dinner table a few times but had never really spoken to. She’d come to think of many of the Beauxbatons students as being like paintings or figments of her imagination; unruffled, unblemished, unbothered. So it was funny to see the girls giggling with each other and swearing at the cold, asking her to spin around so they could squeal over the way her dress moved. The boys were fussing with their cufflinks and trying to catch glimpses of their reflection in the Black Lake. They were real people.

“Thanks so much for letting me come with you,” she said to one of the girls – Christelle, or something like that. She’d been one of those who’d sobbed when Fleur was made Champion; Sophie had a hazy memory of queuing up behind her when Cedric put his name in the goblet. No tears now – Christelle squeezed her arm and grinned, the aura of continental impenetrability instantly dispelled.

“It is not a problem,” she promised. Then, leaning in so the others wouldn’t hear, “So you know – Phil told us about what happened. When you asked him.”

“Oh.” She didn’t need to worry about the cold so much anymore; she felt like her whole body was on fire. She began to explain herself but Christelle cut her off.

“And I _completely_ understand. It is similar thing for me.” She tossed her hair over one shoulder and cast daggers back to the lake, where the Durmstrang ship loomed large next to their boat. “There’s this boy – Leo. He has been all over me since we arrived. He is a nice boy. Nice arms.”

Sophie snorted. Something about Christelle reminded her of Jem, how easy she found it to open up to relative strangers at a moment’s notice.

“And it is all good for few months, but then –” She kissed her teeth like an old schoolmistress. “He said something horrible about Fleur when she came out of the water. That she couldn’t handle it. She took easy way out.” Her eye roll would put Anna to shame. “So I go without him as punishment.”

“It isn’t punishment for me, exactly.” Then she remembered Fred pelting Angelina with parchment. “Or, it’s a _little bit_ punishment, but it’s mainly just miscommunication –”

She would have gone on – Merlin knows she could have talked Christelle’s ear off about the ins and outs of exactly what had transpired that snowy day – but as Sophie stepped into the Great Hall, she was overcome. The whole place was bathed in silvery-blue light, as if the clouds had parted overnight and made way for thousands of stars. That light almost seemed to crystallise in the ice sculptures that adorned the walls. At the front of the hall, where the teachers usually sat, was the largest Christmas tree Sophie had ever seen in her life – it might even have been still growing, threatening to burst through the roof. The Beauxbatons lot, usually no great fans of Hogwarts interior design, gazed about them open-mouthed as they descended the staircase.

“There,” Christelle whispered, pointing to a sullen looking boy in scarlet robes. “That’s Leo.”

As if his ear were attuned to her slightest murmur, the boy’s head whipped around. One look at his face told Sophie he wished he’d never mentioned Fleur bloody Delacour in the first place.

Christelle, however, was not to be deterred. She seized the hand of one of the boys in the group and simpered up at him, chattering inanely in French until Leo stormed off.

“Thanks, Armand,” said Christelle, suddenly business-like and wiping her palms against her skirts.

“Another admirer?”

“My cousin,” she confessed, giving Sophie a wicked smile. “But it worked.” Leo was throwing back a glass of Firewhisky. It was going to be a long night.

“Beautiful, _non_?” Phillipe came up behind them, looking out at the Great Hall like it was some brave new world – astonishing, how charming gargoyles can seem when given a little icy finish. Sophie’s throat constricted a little as she looked at him. As she remembered how unfairly she’d treated him. How kind he was being to her.

As if he could hear her thought process, he tilted her chin to look at him. “You are to have a good time tonight,” he said, so mock-sternly that he might as well have been wagging his finger.

“Thank you. For being so nice to me,” she began weakly. He just threw his head back and laughed.

“It is nothing,” he assured her. “You look wonderful. I am proud to be escorting you. If it helps,” he said with a smirk, pointing to a spot near the biggest Christmas tree, “I think your friend is here.”

Staring at her, in his father’s wedding robes (George was sporting a rather more out-there get up from their late uncle Gideon, who’d clearly been a fan of chartreuse), was Fred. Since their argument, Sophie had largely been avoiding his gaze – when she’d been so angry she could barely talk, so upset she could barely see, or so confused she could hardly think straight, she hadn’t been able to look right at him. And now that she could – now that Phillipe’s hand was on the small of her back, leading her to their dining table – she could have kicked her past self. So what if he hadn’t been able to express his feelings at the drop of a hat? She’d take silent Fred, monk Fred, if it meant she just got to look into his eyes.

It was a relief when the dances started. She stopped choking down the goulash to beam at Cho, who was clutching Cedric’s hand so tightly that she was cutting off his circulation. But the extra hour’s dance practice had served them well – they executed a lift that ballroom dancers would be proud of, even if Sophie could still hear Cho counting to herself _one, two, three_ in a whisper whenever they danced past her. They were certainly the couple to watch – and Harry Potter was watching them, hardly giving a second’s thought to the poor Patil girl. As the song ended, there was a smattering of polite applause for the champions, though Sophie could have sworn she heard Jem and Anna whooping from the other side of the floor.

“Shall we dance?” Phillipe extended his hand towards her as the music swelled up again. He added, cocking his head towards Fred, “I think your friend is getting a little riled up.”

She turned in time to see Fred seize Angelina by the hand and practically drag her onto the floor; George just about snatched her Butterbeer glass away before they snapped into hold. Though the music was beautiful, soaring notes played on some instrument Sophie didn’t recognise and would later find out were produced by plucking unicorn tail hairs, Fred’s face was anything but relaxed. The couples swirled round the hall, weaving in and out of each other like ceilidh dancers back home. As the song came to its close, Sophie and Fred ended up back to back.

He whirled round, quick as lightning. “Can I talk to you?”

But Phillipe had already whisked her away for the next dance. “Trust me,” he said, grinning, as Fred seethed a few feet away from them. “It’s definitely working.”

They were back and forth for the entire traditional dance section. Phillipe didn’t flag for a second. Sophie tossed back Anna’s Firewhisky as they danced past but otherwise it was sheer adrenaline that kept her going, as well as the small, nasty but unmistakable thrill of knowing that Fred was watching her dance with another boy. That he might feel even a modicum of the pain she felt when he asked Angelina. As she collapsed on a table with the others, sending Phillipe into the more than willing arms of Marietta, she was seriously in need of a break.

“Jonathan, go get Sophie a drink,” snapped Jem.

“What dragon pox did your last slave die of?” Jonathan muttered under his breath but he went anyway. Despite his promises to scram the second he came into the hall on Anna’s arm, he’d barely left her side. Intercepting his glances back at Anna as he queued by the bar (at the big age of fourteen), Sophie was pretty sure she was witnessing the beginning stages of a crush. Jem would _love_ that.

“We’re very proud of you,” remarked Jem, gesturing back towards the dance floor with her goblet. “Did all the right steps and everything. You and Cho are my little stars.”  
“You not dancing?” Sophie asked Anna, draining Jonathan’s drink (something pink, faintly fizzy and delicious) in one. Anna laughed, crossing one impossibly long leg over another. Jonathan’s eyes were - predictably - popping out of his skull.

“Flitwick scarred me for life,” she said simply. “And I’m waiting for the Weird Sisters.”

It didn’t look like she’d have to wait much longer. The elegant string quartet had made way for microphones draped in cobwebs and a drum set like a cauldron, the hallmark of their drummer, Orsino Thruston. It was hard to believe it with her Cleopatra eyeliner and posh dress, the image of sophistication, but Anna was ready to lose her mind in the Weird Sisters set. She’d be opening up the mosh pit to _Do the Hippogriff_ before they knew it.

“Soph. Your man-that’s-not-your-man is having a spot of trouble.”

Jem smirked as Sophie snapped her head around. Ludo Bagman, whose name she vaguely recognised as being volleyed between Jem and Anna when it came to Quidditch discussions (“He colluded with _Death Eaters!”_ “You have to separate the art from the artist!”), was attempting to evade the twins as they followed him about the hall. Clearly neither party had forgiven or forgotten the antics of all those months ago; the twins were hungry for galleons and Bagman was nigh on sprinting to get away from them. Maybe it was the drink (which had gone _straight_ to her head) that gave her a funny twinge in her stomach, but it was hard to see Fred look so defeated. Without explanation, Sophie hauled herself to her feet – dizzy already, such a lightweight – and threw herself into ‘bloody Bagman’s’ path.

“Mr Bagman!” she said brightly, every inch the society lady. With this sort of man, Louisa had always told her, you have to appear to be on their side. You have to compliment them. “I just wanted to tell you what a splendid job you’ve done with the hall.” Good enough.

And it seemed to be working, too. Where he’d initially looked at her with vague panic in his eyes, gaze still darting to see if he’d lost the twins, he was now oozing charm. “Well, thank you, Miss –”

“Kincaid,” she said, gracefully ignoring George’s jubilant thumbs-up as he tried to extract Bagman’s wallet from his outer robe pocket. “Sophie Kincaid.” Then, in sheer desperation, as George’s hand grazed Bagman’s hip and he twitched as if to turn, she added, grasping his arm, “My father always says what a good eye you have for these sorts of things.”

“Your…father?” For obvious, Muggle-related reasons, Michael Kincaid had never uttered anything of the sort; wouldn’t know Ludo Bagman if he walked up wearing a name label to introduce himself. However, Sophie could see the cogs whir in Bagman’s head, made sticky by the inordinate amount of Firewhisky he’d already had that evening. She could tell the exact moment he guessed that her father worked in his division, the decision to play it off as if they were best pals. “Oh, yes! Your father! Well. Of course. Right back at him.”

It took several more minutes of small talk, edging ever closer to him and talking ever more animatedly, for the twins to comb through Bagman’s belongings, though Fred seemed more preoccupied with trying to catch her eye than Bagman’s cash. At any event, there would be no recovery of their prize winnings that night. George screwed up his face and shook his head, fervently mouthing their thanks as he slipped away.

With Fred floating in the corner of her eye, Sophie decided this would be a good time to wrap things up with Bagman, who had moved on to discussing the second task in the new year.

“What would you say are the odds,” he asked, eyes lighting up as they hadn’t all evening, “on Potter winning the next task?”

She could see Fred ready to march over, jaw set and wand clutched tightly in his hand – the _audacity_ of the man, making more bets before he deigned to settle his first!

“I don’t know!” she said, trying to diffuse the situation before Fred had a chance to muck things up. Her laugh was brittle, twittery. “You know Harry, he’s got a way of pulling it out of the bag at the last minute!”

Here, the students erupted with cheers. Sophie had never been so grateful to see seven wizards in artfully distressed robes take the stage in her life. She shouted something vague to Bagman over the furore and darted away, only to instantly collide with Fred.

“What the hell was that?” he hissed. He hadn’t stood so close to her in weeks. Her stomach flipped as she looked into his eyes. It was very hard to remember to be annoyed with him.

“I was helping you!” she argued, crossing her arms and wrenching her hand out of his. “You needed someone to stop Bagman. So I did.”

“That didn’t mean rack up your own debts with him!” Fred shouted, mercifully blending into the excited whoops of the crowd. Just as her mouth opened to lay into him a second time, hoping she could keep it together and not get distracted by the way his hair was gleaming in the candlelight, the students surged forward. Lead singer, Myron Wagtail, stepped up to the plate. Sophie found herself flung away from Fred. She spotted the girls right at the front of the crowd – even Cho had abandoned Cedric in order to live her rabid fangirl truth in the splash zone – and jostled her way through to them, having to stop every few seconds to pull up the skirts of her dress from under someone’s feet.

“What was that about?” Jem screeched over the noise of the crowd, but there was no time to explain. Myron grabbed the microphone and smouldered as the band launched into their seminal classic, _This is the Night._ Even the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students seemed to know it. Thousands of students began to jump about wildly, screaming along to the lyrics. Sophie leapt about with them. If she jumped high enough, maybe she'd be able to spot Fred.


	19. You Are The One Song Left In My Symphony (Like You Were Made For Me)

Thank Merlin she hadn’t died of that frostbite. This Weird Sisters concert was every bit as cool as she’d always hoped it would be. You can keep your Fleetwood Mac, your Beatles, your Rolling Stones – none of them had ever had the presence of mind to add a lute solo to their biggest hits. None of them could play the bagpipes as expertly as Gideon Crumb, who was tossing his dreadlocks in time to every creak. _This is the Night_ had been the first big hit from their debut album _Double, Double,_ which had soundtracked their first years at the school. That was the song they’d blasted when Cho had her first ‘break-up’ in second year and Sophie knew every word inside out, even if she couldn’t listen to it without picturing Cho’s blotchy baby face and a very sheepish Terry Boot. But something about the lyrics were hitting Sophie for the first time tonight.

“ _Your voice keeps haunting me_ ,” belted Myron, swaggering about the stage, riding the microphone stand like a broomstick. “ _I cannot eat or sleep_.”

“ _I’m going crazy in this hazy fantasy_ ,” the crowd screamed back. As the bridge built up to the chorus, the drummer went wild, cymbals crashing as Gideon gave a mournful wail on the bagpipes. The song was about freeing yourself from a lover that was no good for you – Sophie knew that. The band had said as much in some of their earliest interviews with _Witch Weekly,_ and it was a recurring theme on their sophomore album _Toil and Trouble._ But she couldn’t help but hear the words in a different light. After all, his voice _had_ been haunting her. And you just had to ask couples’ counsellor Anna to know that she had, indeed, been going crazy in this hazy fantasy. “ _The change is in the air,_ ” Myron promised, holding up a finger to the sky. “ _And nothing will ever be the same.”_ She could only hope those bits were true, too.

Even die-hard fans needed a break mid-set. And when Jem looked ready to regurgitate her goulash after thrashing about to _My Cauldron Burns For You (Can You Feel It?),_ they dragged themselves off the floor, collapsing in a heap of giggles. Cho brought them over four hearty doses of… something – Sophie wasn’t quite sure what, only that it was gold and sugary and Christelle swore by it. Flushed from the dancing, Cho looked the happiest Sophie had seen her all year.

“This has been the best night,” she said, starting to tear up.

“It’s not over yet, idiot,” Sophie reminded her. As anyone who’d been to a party with her knew, a drunk Cho was a soppy Cho. She’d be crying into her goblet and telling them all how much she loved them all night if they gave her the chance.

“I’m just so glad we got to be together for the Weird Sisters,” she carried on, not seeming to notice the sodden napkins Anna was pelting at her. “I love Ced, but he just doesn’t _get_ them.”

“He’s a _philistine_ ,” declared Jem. “Thinks he’s too good to _Do the Hippogriff?_ ” She scoffed and threw a contemptuous glance at Cedric, who was having a perfectly pleasant conversation with Madame Maxine. “ _Grow up._ ”

“Wait a second,” said Sophie. She’d just seen Cedric; Phillipe and Marietta were off making the most of some dark corners; Jonathan was jumping about with Ginny, who was, if not his official date to the Ball, at least in the same year as him. “Where’s your Durmstrang boy?”

“He got pissy with her,” explained Cho in a comically loud whisper; Jem just settled for a loud, mirthless ‘HA!’, knocking Anna’s drink onto the floor with her elbow. “Said she was being frigid.”

At any rate, Jem didn’t seem to be mourning his loss. “If he wanted me that badly, he’d be chasing me around the floor like Weasley.”

Three drinks ago, Sophie might have demurred and said she had no idea what Jem was talking about. But there was no point in denying it. In the middle of conversation with George and Lee, but looking over at the girls’ table so much you would be forgiven for thinking he had a lazy eye, was Fred. Notably, he and Angelina had parted ways almost immediately after the dinner; Sophie had last seen her holding back Katie Bell’s hair in the bathroom. 

“Okay, people,” crooned Myron into the mic, jolting Sophie out of her own head. “We’re throwing it right back to our first album with this one. If you know it, you love it; if you don’t, you should.”

He nodded his head at the drummer, who counted them in with four clicks of his skeleton-bone drumsticks, but it was Herman Wintringham who kicked things off on the lute. Sophie almost couldn’t believe it when he sustained that first, shimmery chord. She could name this song in her sleep.

Anna made a gasping noise which turned into more of a shriek as soon as she recognised it. They ran as fast as they could, kicking off their heels so they wouldn’t trip on the stones, planting themselves firmly at the front of the crowd. This song – _Annie_ – had always been _their_ song. Initially it was because Anna liked to imagine herself as someone’s muse, singing passionately at herself in the mirror of their first-year dorm, but it had stood the test of time. Countless dormitory dance parties had been held to it – indeed, it was the song Cho had blasted the night she was ‘so over’ Terry Boot. Now they could finally hear it live.

“I love you guys,” said Cho, full on weeping now. Sophie just rolled her eyes, hugged her that bit tighter as they stood in a circle, ready to blow the roof off Hogwarts.

“ _There was_ _a girl named Annie,”_ they scream-sang, throwing their heads up to the heavens. “ _She had a very pretty face…”_

They thrashed about on the floor, every bit as uninhibited as they would be in Ravenclaw Tower. Cho was head-banging like she was at a heavy-metal concert, going quite red in the face by the time she came up for air in the chorus. They must have given the most enthusiastic reception to a little-known bonus track that the Weird Sisters had ever seen. They certainly seemed to buoy up the drummer, who grinned at them as he brought in the chorus with all his might. Then came the dream-like bridge, always Sophie’s favourite part of the song; it felt like being underwater. And as Myron sang “ _you are the one sight my eyes never tire of_ ”, and she finally stopped leaping about enough to look around her, her gaze latched onto Fred’s. After all, it was a small crowd at the front. Maybe they didn’t get the deluxe version of _Double, Double_ in Bulgaria (though their sophomore album, _Toil and Trouble,_ had been an unprecedented hit in Eastern Europe). Somewhere deep inside her, Sophie felt that familiar tug in her stomach that always pulled her over to Fred. It was like Myron was saying: “ _it’s like I cannot get enough of you_ ”.

She looked back at the girls, wondering how she could explain without distracting from the big build-up back into that bombastic last chorus. But Anna was totally lost in the music, eyes closed and swaying with more style than Sophie would have thought possible for someone on their seventh drink. Jem just grinned, like she’d known this was coming, and Cho gave what she clearly thought would be an encouraging push over to Fred, but actually sent her careening off into one of the speakers. She barely had time to worry what she was going to say to him – _I’m sorry? Dance with me? You have no business looking this good?_ – but he filled the gap for her, anyway.

“Want to get some air?” He gestured with his head to the corridor that led out to the grounds, hands planted deeply in his pockets like he was anchoring himself. They walked in silence, not even registering Flitwick’s knowing look as they left the hall together. She swore at the crisp December air – even with all those ice sculptures, the sheer body heat of a thousand students had turned the Great Hall into a sauna.

She took a breath to ask how he was enjoying the night so far (the inanest question on Earth, but when you haven’t spoken properly in weeks, you get thrown off your conversational kilter) but he cut her off, spinning to face her. “Why are you here with him?”

“Phillipe?” she asked stupidly. Then, when Fred just scoffed, shoulders pressed tightly up against his ears, she regained her footing. “What do you mean, why am I here with him? Why are you here with Angelina?”

“Not the same thing,” he said defensively. “I’ve hardly seen her all night.”

“That’s not my fault!” Sophie yelped, although she knew in the depths of her gut that it was. “I’ve hardly seen Phillipe.”

“But that’s different,” Fred said, his jaw setting like when he’d seen Bagman get ideas above his station. “I don’t like Ang like that.”

“I don’t like _Phillipe_ like that,” she said, suddenly aware that they were standing even closer together than they had been before the concert kicked off. He hadn’t seemed to notice, taking half a step in. He smelled faintly of some cologne. She couldn’t place it. She was in sensory overload enough as it was.

“You went with him because you knew it would drive me mad,” he accused her. “Admit it. You can’t just dress like _that –_ ” he said, and she could have sworn she heard his breath catch in his throat – “and come in on his arm and expect me to be okay with it.” He was getting worked up now, words rushing out in a torrent. “And – and Bagman trying to – I’m not going to sit idly by and let that happen just because of some stupid fight we had.”

“I’d already driven _myself_ mad,” she blurted out. She stopped for a second. She hadn’t even realised this was at the heart of the matter. But it was. She’d frozen him out for a week – she didn’t so much as look in the direction of a redhead in case it was him – and he had every right to ask someone else. She’d wanted him to act like the classic romantic hero, who knows how he feels and knows how to _say_ how he feels, but she couldn’t have cared less about any of that after he asked Angelina. All she’d known was that Fred – _her_ Fred – might be slipping through her fingers. 

She took a deep breath. “I know that I was unfair. And really – inconsistent. In the way I behaved towards you. And it’s funny – ” she laughed, but it was more like a shiver mixed with a nervous twitch than anything approaching amusement – “because I was so mad at you for not knowing how you felt and then I didn’t know how to feel. And when you asked Angelina – I realised how stupid I was being. Because I wanted you to ask me. So badly.”

He was so impossibly close to her. No one should ever look this good in their father’s twenty-five-year-old wedding suit that needs the hems letting down at the ankles. He'd brought his hands out of his pockets, tension beginning to unwind in his shoulders. “I thought I’d blown it,” he said.

“I don’t think you can. Not with me.”

So much for playing it cool. So long, girl about town who doesn’t wait around for any man, especially ones who flog illness-inducing sweets to children at sports games. But she couldn’t find it in herself to care about any of that with him looking at her so intently. Merlin, he made her feel drunk by just looking at her. Even if she weren’t on her sixth drink, he’d have made her woozy on her feet. She started jabbering, just to have something to say.

“So we can just pretend this never happened. This whole not-talking bit. And we can go back to having product meetings and everything can be normal again –”

“No.”

She looked up at him, thrown. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no.” There was something in his eyes she’d never seen before, certainly not quite so pronounced. Something dark and tempestuous and mesmerising. “I don’t want things to go back to the way they were.”

Then, almost imperceptibly, she felt his thumb graze her waist. Through the gauze of her dress (she _really_ hadn’t dressed for a Scottish winter), it felt like his skin was directly on hers. If she hadn’t had goosebumps already, she’d have been covered in them now. “No?” she asked, barely able to form her mouth around the sound.

“No,” he whispered. And finally, after months of yearning and miscommunication and stupid, stupid arguments, she was kissing Fred Weasley. She’d kissed boys before, sure, but that was awkward, exploratory pecks behind a tapestry and trying to figure out what to do with her tongue. She’d been completely in her head. With Fred, she would think she’d left her head behind altogether if his fingers hadn’t been tangled in her hair; would think her feet had left the ground if they didn’t stumble every so often when she deepened the kiss, would think she was having some wild dream if every nerve ending in her body weren’t ablaze. Kissing Fred Weasley was _fantastic_. She couldn’t believe she’d spent any time in her life doing anything else. She would have to rectify that immediately.

 _“Ahem,”_ came a cough. Barely breaking apart for air, they came face to face with McGonagall (who seemed to have the tiniest smirk on her face, but it must have been a trick of the light) and Flitwick, whose Halloween suspicions were now confirmed.

“Let’s try to control ourselves, Mr Weasley, Miss Kincaid,” he said wearily. How he’d come to spend more time prising teenagers off one another than teaching Charms, he’d never know. He cursed Dumbledore for putting him on garden patrol as they moved a few shrubs along, off to tear Roger Davies and Fleur Delacour apart. It took everything Sophie had not to giggle uncontrollably as they moved out of sight.

“Get a hold of yourself, Miss Kincaid,” Fred whispered, in that uncanny imitation of McGonagall. He was beaming down at her, like all the smiles he’d wanted to give her in the last week were all coming at once. Just as his hands slipped into her hair again and he leaned towards her, she placed a hand on his chest.

“Wait a second,” she said. “We need to think.”

“Oh, Ravenclaw,” he moaned, kissing down her neck as she gasped. “You and your thinking.”

She knotted her fingers in his hair for a change and tugged him up to look at her properly. “I’m serious. We can’t just sneak off into the night.”

“Can’t we?” Fred wheedled. “You’d be a much better roommate than George.”

She planted a few quick kisses on his lips to quieten him (more fool her – he was never going to be satisfied). “It’s not fair on Angelina and Phillipe.” Before Fred could get too far murmuring about exactly where Angelina and Phillipe could go, she added, “It’s almost time for the last dances, anyway. Don’t you want to dance with me looking like this?”

“Do I ever,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around her again.

But before she’d go in for another kiss: “Wait. Give me your jacket. I’m freezing my arse off here.”

He couldn’t get out of it fast enough. “Should have thought of that,” he said, grinning. “Chivalrous thing to do.” But with his hands tightening around her waist, chivalry was the last thing on her mind.

Call her self-centred, but Sophie had been expecting to be the centre of her friends’ attention when she’d come back into the Ball on Fred’s arm, lips distinctively puffy. As it was, they barely got a look in. McGonagall was in the middle of giving the Weird Sisters drummer a very thorough dressing-down as he and Anna stood sheepishly next to each other, Anna’s hair distinctly rumpled, with a blossoming mark on her neck that definitely hadn’t been there earlier.

“All this time you were calling her a nonce,” said Jem gleefully to Lee, who hadn’t been able to pick his jaw up off the ground. “When she was just holding out for bigger and better things.”

If anyone were bigger and better than Jonathan Liu, a strapping international music sensation ought to fit that description.

Even under McGonagall’s disapproving eye, Anna couldn’t stop herself from breaking into a grin as she stumbled over to them. Yes, she may have entered the Great Hall that evening on the arm of a beanpole third year who’d used more Sleekeazy on his hair than any self-respecting wizard ever should, but she’d wound up snogging Orsino Thruston.

“I’m sorry,” said George, for whom this seemed to be the best Christmas present of all. “ _What_ did you say his name was?”

“No,” said Anna firmly. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t –”

“Did he _thrust on_ you?” asked Lee, scandalised, clutching a hand to his heart. “Were you _thrusted upon?”_

They kept up this up even as they poured out into the deserted corridors, the word ‘ _thrust’_ reverberating for all to hear.

They stood as they so often had where the staircases for the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms diverged; only this time she wouldn’t have to remind herself not to kiss him absent-mindedly before they went. Cho had snuck off half an hour before to make the most of Cedric’s deserted dormitory, so it was just the six of them saying goodnight. And not a moment too soon – Jem had almost fallen asleep on Lee by the time they were ready to go.

“Goodnight,” said Fred, quick as a flash leaning in to give her a last, lingering kiss. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, but they both knew it was in vain. She was going to miss him. Unspeakably.

He bounded away after the boys, sounds of his feet slapping the stones echoing through the night.

“You and Fred!” said Anna, gobsmacked, having been ‘otherwise engaged’ during the big reveal.

“Excuse me?” said Sophie, goggling right back at her. “You and an _internationally renowned drummer._ Start talking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The moment we've all been waiting for! I'd recommend listening to 'Annie' by Safetysuit as you read - that's the song I imagine the Weird Sisters are playing (and something I discovered on a Finnick and Annie playlist n 8tracks - remember 8tracks?!) xx


	20. Lead Me Out On That Moonlit Floor

“And then he said they’re touring _America_ in the new year –”

“Can you skip to the bit where he kisses you?” said Cho, bleary-eyed (unsurprisingly; it had just gone four in the morning, and though she’d been snuggled up in the Hufflepuff dormitories, she and Cedric hadn’t exactly been napping). But she would stay up all night if she had to, to hear about the antics of Annabelle Armstrong, seductress extraordinaire. The sun was beginning to think about peeking out over the horizon. It was neither Christmas anymore nor Boxing Day quite yet; they wouldn’t straggle out of bed for brunch for another few hours; it was like the world was waiting for something. This was the kind of transitional limbo phase in which their best friend, currently snuggled up in her festive bedsocks, could have spent the evening in the arms of a Weird Sister.

“So _I_ say shouldn’t he be getting back, because their second set is about to start.” Anna jostled on the bed, positively brimming with excitement. She’d be riding off this high for months. “But _he_ says he’s got something he wants to take care of before he does…”

“How could I have missed this?” Cho sighed, staring up at the canopy.

“You were busy getting off with your pin-up boyfriend,” came Jem’s muffled voice from under her pillow. She wasn’t great at late nights at the best of times, and certainly not when everyone and their mother seemed to have had a romantic evening except for her.

“He was really subtle about it,” said Anna, with all the authority of one who _knows these things_ about transatlantic wizard rock megastars. “He took me on this walk by the lake when they were playing the Spellbound medley. He said he used to sit by the lake when _he_ was here.”

_Him and every other Hogwarts student in history,_ Sophie thought to herself. Probably Tom bloody Riddle himself had gone for a moonlit brood once in a while. But she kept her mouth shut, not wanting to rain on Anna’s parade. Jem, however, had no such qualms.

“Bubs, I really couldn’t be happier for you,” she said, poking her head above the parapet of the duvet to give Anna a stern stare, made all the scarier by the bags under her eyes. “And this will go down in history as the coolest thing you’ve ever done, but can we talk about this at any time _other_ than four a.m.?”

Anna turned off her bedside lamp with a muted _sorry_ and the fifth year Ravenclaw dormitory was finally at rest; if you didn’t count Anna singing Weird Sisters melodies in her sleep. Jem, who would spontaneously combust if she had to listen to any rendition of _Annie_ in the next decade, threw up a silencing charm around her four-poster. It was quiet enough that Sophie imagined Cho had drifted off to sleep as well, lulled by the _one-two-three_ metronome she’d been muttering obsessively during the dance.

“Was it good?” Cho’s pale face glimmered in the early morning light. “With Fred?”

That familiar fire flared again in her belly as she remembered their kiss. Kiss _es_ , plural. How it had felt to walk into the hall, hand in his, tearing up the dance floor long after most couples called it a night. Watching him bound off into the distance with George and Lee, positively cock-a-hoop. “Yeah,” she whispered back. She couldn’t keep her eyes open or the smile off her face. “Yeah, it was really good.”

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Die, Jordan.”

The girls were significantly worse for wear as they stumbled down for brunch the next morning. Jem had fallen asleep mid-morning singalong, trailing off somewhere around jingling around the block. They’d had to hoist her out of the shower before she accidentally drowned herself. Cho had poured the coffee straight down her throat, cutting out the needless middlemen of cup and saucer. Cedric was doing much the same thing at the Hufflepuff table, a love bite blooming on his neck and hair more bedraggled than Sophie ever seen it. Anna looked singularly well-rested, eating her bacon sandwich without a care in the world. All around the hall, eyes were darting towards her – _I heard she’s going to drop out and go on tour with them; I heard when McGonagall interrupted them, he asked if she wanted to join in_ – but, for once, it didn’t seem to bother her.

“Is this the sort of thing you’re going to _do_ now?” She could almost hear the raised eyebrow in Cho’s voice, if such a thing were possible. Her attention shifted away from Anna, who was flicking through _Witch Weekly_ (likely in search of a Weird Sisters poster she could put next to her Krum Kalendar), down to the floor, where Fred, predictably, was crouched at her feet, sporting his newest Christmas jumper. She’d always thought that was a sweet tradition, even back when Weasleys were just interchangeable redheads gadding about in their mother’s knitwear. What she didn’t recognise from previous years was the sprig of mistletoe he’d managed to braid into his hair, flopping down so the end tickled his nose.

“Look at the state of you,” she admonished, but she couldn’t stop her fingers from darting out and sweeping his hair away from his face. “How’d do you manage this?” she asked, flicking the mistletoe so it swung to and fro.

Fred began to spin a story about an army of house elves weaving it into his hair to set the tone for the most romantic day of the year (a way she’d never heard Boxing Day described), before George interrupted with, “Spellotape,” and a knowing smirk.

“That’ll be a bitch to take out again,” said Jem with a grimace, fingering her own hair like she was experiencing phantom pains.

“You know what they say, Liu,” said Fred, clasping one of Sophie’s hands in his. “Love is pain.”

“Get up, you git,” she said, laughing, spying last night’s patrol squad watching them warily over at the teacher’s table. “Flitwick’s going to think you’re proposing.”

“How about it, Kincaid?” He was stretched up to his full height now, throwing out his arms like he was ready to burst into song. “Wouldn’t you hate to see perfectly good mistletoe go to waste?”

“It’s already gone to waste,” interjected Lee, delighting in ruining the moment. “He pinched it from the common room this morning.”

“A common thief!” she gasped, pretending to be shocked as Fred clasped her hands to his chest.

“With a heart of gold, madam.”

“We get it, you’re not fighting anymore!” Four hours’ sleep did not agree with Jem. “Can you please take your love-making elsewhere?”  
  


Sweeping a courtly bow and murmuring that it should be as Miss Liu wished, Fred doffed an imaginary cap to George and Lee, who made similarly grandiloquent gestures back to him. He pulled her round the corner, where she had to make twice as many steps just to keep up with him, out of sight behind a tapestry of Bernadette the Brassy.

“Alone at last.”

“Merlin, what a line.”

“Please respect the mistletoe, Kincaid.”

Her second kiss with Fred Weasley was excellent, thank you very much. Though it was probably more like their twelfth. To be honest, she’d lost track at some point last night.

“Even better when Flitwick isn’t on the prowl,” she said as she pulled away, trying to smooth down the hair she’d just spectacularly mussed up.

“I’ve got my suspicions about him,” Fred started, waggling his eyebrows at her. “Once interrupting us, fair enough, give the bloke the benefit of the doubt. But _twice?”_ He shook his head gravely. “I reckon he’s watching us. Even now.”

“ _Why_ would you even say that?” she groaned, tugging the edge of her skirt down like they might be discovered any second. He just grinned. “What are you smiling about?”

“You’re hot when you’re pretending to be mad at me,” he teased, flicking her tie that she’d just straightened so it was all askew again. He was supremely confident in his abilities with the opposite sex for a man currently swaddled in a home-made Christmas jumper.

“Whatever, Weasley,” she retorted, folding her arms and double-triple-checking that Flitwick wasn’t lurking anywhere near the bottom of the tapestry. Fred just rocked back on his heels and laughed.

“The gig is up, Kincaid. The entire wizarding world saw the way you looked at me last night.”

“The entire wizarding world were not in attendance at the Yule Ball,” she muttered.

“They didn’t have to be. You were practically shouting it from the roof tops: _Fred Weasley, how I regret mistreating you, please accept my apology and snog me senseless in the bushes._ ”

“And what about you?” she said, trying not to dwell on the fact that Fred had made a pretty accurate translation of the butterflies she’d felt during the Weird Sisters set last night. Two could play at this game. “You were following me around the hall like I had a magnet on my back.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, drawing her into him again. And just when he was about to kiss her, he whispered: “It was Jonathan I was after, all along.”

She whacked him on the arm and resolved not to kiss him for the rest of the day. He quite quickly changed her mind. He was good at that.


	21. I'm Ready To Suffer And I'm Ready To Hope

It was surprisingly easy, being with Fred. It wasn’t that she’d ever found it hard to get on with him; from the moment he slotted into conversation with her at the World Cup like they’d known each other for years, she’d never felt like she had to think too much about what to say next. But considering all the (admittedly, self-inflicted) tumult of the last month, it was just so nice to slot back into place. Business meetings were much the same as ever, only now he’d sling his arm around her shoulder as they tried to summarise the plot of _Mary Poppins_ for George and Lee. They spent one blisteringly cold Wednesday in a boys versus girls snowman competition, like they were twelve years old again – and Jem and George’s furious argument over whose snowman was the truest representation of Dumbledore (“you can’t use clothes! Snow or organic materials _only!_ ”) was pretty juvenile. But there was still a faint sense of guilt churning in her stomach.

She’d dealt with the whole Phillipe situation. Ever since their unexpected bonding moment by the lake, Sophie and Christelle had struck up a real friendship, and Sophie spent the night before holed up in the Beauxbatons ship, making use of their on-demand pain au chocolat service. She’d run into Phillipe and his friends too – they were huddled around their contraband radio, straining to hear the results of the Hippogriff racing competitions – and they’d had a nice chat. Fred had even found it in himself to say ‘hello’ when they crossed paths up at the castle. But with Angelina, Sophie hadn’t been quite so brave.

“What do you think she’s going to do?” Jem asked from her bed. She’d agreed to taste-test some Lolling Lollipops that afternoon, claiming she had nothing better to do (though Sophie suspected that spending some time with Lee had been the main draw, an interpretation Jem strongly denied). Whatever her motivation had been, she was still a bit light-headed. “I know she’s a little bit scary on the pitch, but she’s not going to bite your head off.”

“You saw her when Fred asked her to the Ball.” Partly in solidarity with her headachy friend, partly out of a sense of woe-is-me, Sophie had collapsed onto her mattress too. It was easier to talk about it when she was staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t have to look into Jem’s face and be confronted by how ridiculous she sounded. “She was really happy.”

Jem scoffed. “Yeah. Because it was the 23rd and no one had asked her yet. Fred was just right place, right time.”

“Or,” Sophie started, her imagination running wild, telling her Angelina had been in love with Fred since they first locked eyes in front of the Sorting Hat, “maybe she’d been waiting –”

“Or, _maybe_ ,” said Jem, trying to chuck a pillow at her but sending it careening off into the corner, “you’ll have no idea until you actually _speak_ to her about it.”

Stupid emotionally intelligent friends telling you the exact right thing to do. Sophie was very aware that she probably looked like she was loitering outside the Gryffindor common room – she had been, for the last twenty minutes. She’d felt too awkward to ask Fred for the password, not desperately wanting him to know her plan, and she hadn’t managed to catch George or Lee before the afternoon block of lessons started. She had a vague plan of waiting until someone she knew showed up, but no luck so far. Stupid Fat Ladies who want passwords rather than riddles. Exclusive gits.

“Er – y’alright?” Ron had paused mid-clamber out of the portrait hole. Though she’d never been in a school that didn’t have at least three or four Weasleys running about the place, and she knew Ron to speak to, she’d yet to be formally introduced as Fred’s – whatever they were at the moment. His _not_ girlfriend. His not _yet_ girlfriend? At any rate, she wasn’t quite sure how to conduct herself around his little brother. And Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. Standing awkwardly next to his best friend with a sugar quill in his mouth. She erred on the side of not being overly familiar.

“Um.” Ever eloquent. “Is Angelina in? Angelina Johnson.” 

Ron seemed to relax slightly. The tips of his ears had reddened, just as the twins did when they were embarrassed. She wondered what he’d been expecting her to ask – to carry an explicit love note to her brother or something equally uncomfortable. “Yeah, she’s in.” Then, when Sophie stalled, not having thought beyond this far, he ventured, “I can ask her to come out for you?”

“Thanks,” she managed, throat dry. Ron nodded warily and bobbed back inside. What a fabulous impression she was leaving on Fred’s siblings; that she was some socially inept idiot who hung around outside their common room. Fred would cackle if he could see her now. Harry made a brave stab at conversation.

“I’m Harry,” he said, ridiculously. “It's Sophie, isn't it?” As if he didn’t know exactly who Cho hung around with on a daily basis.

“Yes,” she said, doing her very best not to let her eyes wander up to the scar on his forehead. Searching about for something to say, she tried, “Nice job at the Ball last week. You managed the traditional dance bit pretty well.”

One eyebrow disappeared behind a mess of scruffy dark hair. “Thanks. You’re a terrible liar.”

Like that, some of the tension dissipated. Yes, this was the boy who’d rescued the wizarding world from calamity before she’d even known what the word ‘witch’ meant; but he was also a gangly kid who had a crush on one of her best friends. How would Fred approach a situation like this? Make a joke to take the edge off. “Yeah. Maybe it’s for the best Cho couldn’t go with you. You’d have shown her up.”

Bright red, to the extent that it might steam up his glasses, he still shot back: “Yeah. And when McGonagall interrupted your romantic reunion, did she do that look where it’s like she’s smelling a dung beetle?”

She let out a shocked laugh. When Angelina popped her head around the portrait hole, Sophie felt acutely relieved. She didn’t know quite how to feel now that the Chosen One had clearly heard about her garden antics at the Ball, even if they had been getting on alright.

“Hi.” There was a questioning look in Angelina’s eyes, which seemed fair enough; Sophie couldn’t now remember one single conversation they’d had.

“Happy-New-Year,” gabbled Ron. The boys disappeared round the corner sharpish, Harry smirking and whispering something about bushes and brothers to Ron as they went. She was going to kill the Boy Who Lived.

“Hi. Um – are you free to chat? For a minute?”

They found a bench a few portraits along. Under the watchful gaze of Belinda the Benevolent (which she could only hope was a good omen), Sophie took a deep breath.

“I just wanted to apologise. About what happened at the Ball. Fred and I – we were in this stupid fight that got out of hand and – I would hate to think that you were upset. That was so not our intention.”

She was prepared to launch into a detailed psychoanalysis of herself on the day of the argument, anything to prove how irrational she’d been, when she felt Angelina’s hand on her arm.

“Don’t even worry about it,” she said. “Honestly. I had a great time.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did!” Sophie cried, suddenly worrying she’d cast Angelina as this despondent spinster in her retelling of the events. “But that doesn’t mean that Fred –”

“I’ve known Fred forever,” Angelina interjected, a smile playing on her lips. “He’s an idiot about this stuff. He didn’t mean any harm.”

All those nightmares Sophie had dreamt up – a grief-stricken Angelina wailing, wondering why he hadn’t been true to her, blaming Sophie as the sorceress who’d spirited him away – were crumbling in an instant. “I know he’s really sorry about everything,” she said.

“He’s not _that_ sorry.” Angelina grinned at her. “He’s too busy sticking his tongue down your throat.”

They chatted a while longer, about what a shame it was there was no Quidditch season this year and how Angelina was managing to keep her eye in. Everyone in Gryffindor seemed to be Quidditch _mad,_ they must take some kind of degree in it before they were allowed into the common room. But Quidditch talk with Angelina wasn’t a whir of stats and foreign players’ names from the eighteen hundreds like it sometimes could be with Jem, Anna and Cho. She opened it up to more accessible ground, about whether Sophie kept up with any teams (she had a very loose association with the Tutshill Tornadoes, but that was mainly for Cho’s benefits) and how she’d liked learning to fly. Sophie was just telling her about the Bludger she’d taken to the head in first year when the twins homed into view.

“Look at that, Freddie,” said George. “Sister wives. Are you sharing nicely?”

“I hereby surrender all claims to Fred Weasley,” said Angelina magnanimously, holding up her hands, “and donate him to the less fortunate.”

Maybe Angelina was pretty cool, after all. Fred stuck his tongue out and told her she should be so lucky as to be one of his many wives, to which she replied: “What a bleak existence that would be.” Then, “Wait a second.” She rifled through her bookbag.

“Careful,” said George in a stage whisper. “It could be poisoned. She wants him all to herself.”

“Shut it, Weasley.” She offered Sophie a well-worn copy of _Quidditch Through The Ages._ “Since you need a bit of a refresher.”

“You’re giving me all your cast-offs today,” Sophie quipped; any worry that she might have crossed some line in the sand was quashed by Angelina’s laughter.

“Blimey, mate.” George clapped his brother on the back. “You’d better watch out.”

***

Cho hadn’t expected to find anyone in the dorm. And for half eleven on New Year’s Eve, that didn’t seem wholly unreasonable. The common room was packed downstairs – Roger and his mates had set up a version of beer pong where you had to try and get the snitch through the crook of Rowena Ravenclaw’s arm, and half the house were queuing up to have a shot. She’d only run in to freshen up before seeing in 1995 with the Hufflepuffs (or, more accurately, from Cedric’s dorm). Which was why she was so disarmed to see a small bundle huddled up in her bed, all alone in the dark.

“Jem!” She flicked on the bedside lamp once she’d caught her breath. “You scared the life out of me.’

“Sorry.” Jem not being at a New Years’ party was the reddest of red flags. Even in their first year, she’d snuck down to the common room to splash some Firewhisky in their hot chocolate before sprinting back up the stairs, laughing all the way. To see her, hair hanging limp about her face, hugging her knees – it was horrible.

“What’s the matter, bubs?”

To her credit, Jem didn’t waste time insisting she was fine, just fancied turning in early. Once Cho confirmed that Sophie was celebrating in Gryffindor Tower that night and Anna was involved in a furious Exploding Snap drinking game that looked set to go on for hours, Jem let out a breath.

“You’re going to think I’m mad at you,” she said in a small voice.

Cho just looked at her, all thoughts of New Year’s with her boyfriend retreating to the recesses of her mind, and waited for her to continue.

“It’s just – you have Cedric. And Sophie has Fred. Which is so, so great and I’m so happy that you’re both happy…” She rested her chin on her knees, staring out of the window. “But it was kind of – in my head, it was, okay, you have your boys, so then it’s Anna and me.”

Cho wriggled her way in under the duvet next to her, stealing one of Jem’s cushions to lean against. It was becoming abundantly clear that there would be no midnight kiss in the Hufflepuff common room; so might as well get comfortable.

“And then when Anna kissed that guy at the Ball –”

Jem knew his name. Everyone in the whole school knew his name. You could not have spent the last week in their friendship group, with the boys trying to work his name into every possible scenario, gleefully repurposing a slogan they’d found in stacks of old _Witch Weeklys_ that read ‘Gimme M-Orsino!’, without his name sticking in your mind. But if talking about him in the abstract was going to dull the pain a little, then Cho saw no harm in it.

“It’s the coolest thing she’s ever done, no question.” But there wasn’t much excitement on her little friend’s face. “It – I just feel like everyone had so much fun that night. Except for me.”

“Hey,” Cho said softly. “We had a lot of fun. You danced until you dropped.”

“Please,” she retorted, harshness mitigated by her sniffles. Cho rolled her eyes and summoned a handkerchief for her as Jem said, “You were the _Champion’s date._ Soph finally pulled her head out of her arse and got this big romantic moment. Anna seduced a literal rock star. Everyone got their happy ending.”

“Oi.” Cho fixed her best friend with a look and pulled the duvet off her, ignoring Jem’s whining about the cold. “Firstly, I don’t think a public humiliation from Professor McGonagall is anyone’s idea of a happy ending. Orsino’s practically gone into hiding.”

Even Jem, who was always ready with a rebuttal, couldn’t dispute this. Transfiguration was the one lesson she never mucked around in. It was better to miss out on thirty minutes of gossipy fun than to have McGonagall raise even one eyebrow at you. It was like being incinerated on the spot.

“And second of all,” she carried on before an indignant Jem could interrupt. “Yes, I’m happy. But it’s not the ending. We’re sixteen, Jem.”

“ _I know,_ ” she said, blowing her nose with a hoot. “I have my whole life ahead of me, who cares about one stupid Durmstrang boy, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“Bubs, you didn’t even _like_ him,” Cho reminded her mildly. “You barely even spoke to him.”

“Yeah, because he was a _dickhead._ ” Jem shuddered, remembering just how moany he’d got when she plucked his hands off her boobs and told him to piss off. Even when she concentrated, she couldn’t quite picture his face. “But why do I have to get dickheads when everyone else gets perfect boys?”

Cho smiled to herself. Even if Jem had a counterargument to everything she put forward, the fact that she wasn’t just listlessly staring into space was an improvement on when she came in.

“I know. But think about Anna. Yes, she had this magical night and she looked stunning and your little brother definitely has a thing for her now.” That was bound to make her hiccough with laughter, and it did. “But Orsino is – like you said – a _literal_ rock star. He’s on the road all the time, with people who are a long way out of Hogwarts. Anna might never see him again.”

“I guess.” A small part of Jem wouldn’t mind terribly if Anna never got to describe the precise texture of Orsino’s hair again, but the pathos of the situation was undeniable.

“And Soph. It’s great that she and Fred sorted things out.”

“I like Fred,” said Jem meekly, remembering how ridiculous he’d looked after he broke the Age Line and how he’d laughed – no, cackled – at himself. She liked a person to be able to do that.

“Yeah. I like him too. But they both have a lot of growing up to do. Fred leaves Hogwarts next year,” she said, trying to ignore the little voice in her head that reminded her Cedric would be gone in just a few short months. “And who knows what will happen then?”

“And you’ve got a boyfriend who has to keep secrets from you and fight dragons because of some stupid cup,” said Jem bluntly. “Which must suck.”

“It’s the worst,” she admitted. She wondered sometimes whether, if she could turn back time and be given the chance to go out with Cedric for that first time – knowing everything she did now – whether she would. She knew what a loving girlfriend _should_ say. She knew how special he always made her feel, whether it was escorting her to the Yule Ball as the Triwizard Champion or bringing her up tea from the kitchens in the morning. But if she could get rid of those sleepless nights of wondering whether he were in danger, stop seeing his mutilated body as her Boggart – she wasn’t sure what she’d say.

“What I mean is,” she soldiered on, “being with someone doesn’t make all your problems go away.” She nudged Jem with her shoulder as the music was cranked even louder downstairs. If you listened closely, you could just about hear someone accuse Anna (correctly) of cheating at Exploding Snap. “Because when my boyfriend decides to get his eyebrows burned off, the only people who can make me feel better are you guys.”

“That’s so lame,” Jem told her, but a smile was beginning to break through. Firecrackers had been let off in Gryffindor Tower again, with only minutes to go till midnight. Classic Jordan. If Cho had been with the Hufflepuffs as planned, she’d have Cedric’s arm encircling her waist and all the Butterbeer she could drink. But she was happy to be seeing in the new year like this.

“Happy New Year, bubs,” she said, head resting against her friend’s as they watched the fireworks (arranged as a red and gold lion – _duh_ ) soar into the night sky.

Jem snuggled in beside her. “Thanks for sitting with me. You didn’t have to.”

“I know.” The lion had started chasing a Hufflepuff badger; even gunpowder took a side in the Diggory versus Potter divide. Cho closed her eyes, blocked it all out. Focused on her best friend beside her.

“You know,” she said, as if the thought had only just that minute popped into her head, and had nothing at all to do with the sly looks they’d been giving each other at breakfast, “I bet it was Lee who set off those firecrackers.”

"Shut it, Chang."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope you enjoyed this one! slight departure by focusing more on Jem but what Cho tells her - you can be happy but this isn't the ending - is basically my manifesto on relationships haha, so had to work it in somewhere! let me know what you think xx


	22. Does It Ever Drive You Crazy (Just How Fast The Night Changes)

In between all the romantic reconciliations and raging hangovers (the Gryffindor Quidditch team partied _hard_ ), Sophie had almost forgotten Hogwarts was a place of learning first, adolescent playground second. She hadn’t touched anything to do with academics since she set down her quill at the end of her final mock and she wasn’t greatly looking forward to picking it back up again. Or seeing any of those mock papers, which she could have sworn she sat a decade ago, ever again.

“I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Anna, not bothering to spare feelings.

Lee didn’t seem to mind, just speared a sausage and stared at them, like he was observing another species who’d developed new methods of communication. And telepathy certainly seemed in evidence that morning – Anna had heard from Marietta, who’d heard Flitwick mention to Grubbly-Plank, that their Charms mock had been atrocious across the board; that no one had been given an Exceeds Expectations, let alone an Outstanding; and all this before eight o’clock in the morning.

“Mocks have no bearing on anything,” Lee tried again, holding himself up as a shining academic example. “I got a Troll in Transfig mocks, and just look at me now.”

“You got a Dreadful.” Crush or no, Jem was not about to go easy on someone so wildly out of touch with the Ravenclaw hive mind.

“And a damned improvement it was, too,” said George loyally, clapping him on the back. “We were very proud of our boy.”

“Hey. Kincaid.”

Even before she looked up, she had the beginnings of a smile on her face. She looked forward to breakfast every morning, partly for the extraordinary vintage of orange juice the house elves had put out recently, and partly to see what ridiculous game Fred would invent this morning. Always looking for ways to bend the rules about sitting at other houses’ tables, Fred had come up with a succession of communication systems; yesterday, he’d tried to have just his feet on the bench beside her, to nudge her whenever he wanted to talk, but McGonagall had scolded him for being a hazard when he was still on his first bowl of cornflakes. Today, he was pelting her with Cheerios every time he thought she looked too stressed. So far, six had ended up in her hair, upwards of a dozen on the floor, and one down her blouse, which he’d generously offered to help her locate.

“Don’t even worry about it. You’ll have done great.”

“Yeah,” said Jem, gobbling up a stray Cheerio that had wound up in her collarbone; for someone whose whole position on the Gryffindor team relied on whacking heavy objects in the right places, Fred’s aim was seriously off. “You were Das Machine when you sat those mocks. Exam papers trembled at the sight of you.”

Sophie groaned. The Sophie of a month ago, who put everything on hold to study after her fight with Fred, even blinking at less frequent intervals to take in more of her textbooks, seemed long gone. In her place, a sleepy, sappy idiot, who let the guy she’d tried to freeze out get cereal all over her uniform and thoroughly thaw her heart.

He just grinned, wiping orange juice from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m telling you. You’ll have smashed it. Just don’t go to Lee if Transfig goes south.”

Transfig didn’t go south; Transfig soared, to dizzying northward heights, the likes of which Lee Jordan had never seen. Miraculously, she’d come out with an EE, and she spent the rest of the lesson in a happy haze, daring the world to ask her _anything_ about the _inanimatus conjurus_ spell; she practically _invented_ that spell. By second period, Marietta Edgecombe had been proven a dirty rotten liar (or, more sympathetically, slightly hard of hearing), and Flitwick gave her an almost imperceptible nod of approval when he placed her paper face down on her desk. Sure enough, when she turned it over, there was a great big _O_ in the top right-hand corner. All those hours practising Charms on the Puking Pastilles when Cho told her she should have been studying theory were vindicated. She could even stomach Snape only giving her an Acceptable. If he’d been as jittery as she’d felt after testing her overzealously stirred Draught of Peace, he’d done well to hold the quill still enough to mark her in the first place.

“And then – you are _never_ going to guess what he said to me.” Jem was hopping from one foot to the other in pure jubilation. Without bothering to wait for a guess, she launched in: “He basically said I’m a born Auror. He said he’d never seen someone show so much promise in their fifth year. Didn’t he, Anna?”  
“He did.” Anna wrinkled her nose. “Might have been less weird if he weren’t licking his lips the entire time.”

“He’s a _genius,_ ” said Jem fervently. “Geniuses do weird things all the time.”

“Like what?” challenged Sophie, curious to see how far Jem would go to defend her eccentric idol, but she didn’t even seem to hear her.

“He comes from the longest line of Aurors in wizarding _history…”_

“Would that line happen to be extremely inbred?”

Jem spent all of lunch trying desperately to convince Anna of Moody’s mastery: how half of Azkaban was populated by witches and wizards he’d personally caught; how his glass eye, a replacement after a brutal battle with Evan Rosier in the eighties, was considered the magnum opus of bionics; how the licking thing was probably just something he’d picked up in the field, a battle with a giant cobra or something.

“You little fibber, Annabelle.”

Anna stopped right in the middle of telling Jem just how stupid that cobra thing sounded, looking caught. Cho was towering over them with a stern glint in her eye. “When were you going to tell us you came top in Ancient Runes?”

“Oh, for Merlin’s _sake,_ Anna.”

Sophie could have throttled her. Though such happy news would have seemed unfairly received by an innocent bystander, that bystander should try listening to Annabelle Armstrong complain about Ancient Runes for three weeks straight and then try to defend her. From the second she’d started revising, Anna had never stopped prattling on about how she was never going to be able to remember the difference between hieroglyphs and the Greek alphabet, how she may as well give up on being a curse-breaker here and now. That bystander should try talking her down from the owlery and coming back with their ego intact. _Then_ the bystander could talk.

Anna at least had the good grace to look ashamed of herself. “There’s only, like, five of us. McLaggen doesn’t count.”

Cormac McLaggen had only taken Ancient Runes because Divination didn’t fit with his timetable (not to him would a time-turner be entrusted). His begging and pleading to McGonagall to get him out of the class fell on deaf ears; he’d been sulking in the back of Anna’s classroom ever since.

“Still,” chastised Cho, swatting her on the arm as she sat down. “We’re very proud of you, you git.”

“Nice words, nasty tone,” mused Jem, making faces in her mashed potato with her gravy. “Is that what you’re like with Ced? _I love you, you bastard?_ ”

“Cho’s a fibber, too,” said Sophie, giving up on her shepherd’s pie to mete out justice. “She got 110% in Herbology. Sprout said she’d never seen such a good Herbivicus charm.”

“That’s not a fib,” Cho whined. “I hadn’t got round to saying yet, that’s all.”

“False modesty will not be tolerated in this friendship group,” said Jem with mock severity. “Say it. For everyone to hear. You smashed Herbology.”

“And I thought Gryffindors were a bunch of braggarts.” The twins loped into lunch, fresh from a stupendously unproductive Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson. Sophie had no way of gauging their defensive abilities; whether they couldn’t curse their way out of a paper bag or if they were dab hands – they only ever came out talking about Mad-Eye, and whether his peg leg hinted at a mysterious pirate past.

Fred plonked down cross-legged at her feet. She was quite glad – she’d rather not have mashed potato volleyed at her in lieu of Cheerios. “Scores on the doors, Kincaid?” he asked.

“I haven’t got everything back yet…”

Any illusion of humility was shattered when, after Jem said, “she got 114% in Charms,” she hastily corrected it. “118%, actually.”

“You’re hot when you’re bragging,” he told her quietly, as soon as Jem had diverted everyone’s attention by condemning Marietta as a filthy liar, who’d more than likely fabricated the whole Charms ruse to get inside their heads.

Even if no one were available to make gagging noises, Sophie still kept her voice low. “I thought I was hot when I was pretending to be mad at you.”

“You’re hot all the time,” he said simply, leaning back on his hands so he could take in the view. He didn’t even flinch when a third year trod on his fingers. “If I told you every time you looked hot, then I’d never get anything done. And we’ve got a business to run, in case you didn’t know.”

“Soph.” The flurry of butterflies in her stomach paused mid-flight as Cho jabbed the point of an envelope into her arm. “Letter for you.”

Right. Letters. Correspondence. The real world. She tore her eyes away from Fred, who was making a nuisance of himself running his fingers up and down the ladders in her tights. Opening the envelope, she saw her mother’s best stationery, along with several Polaroids from their Christmas celebrations.

_Darling,_

_Happy New Year! We really missed you – all our old men send their love to your ‘fancy boarding school’. They think it’s frightful of us to make you stay away and work during the holidays. If we told Angus you’d actually been entertaining a giantess and an international sports star, and he could check the truth of these claims by popping a letter in the claws of the owl that roosts in the rowan tree, I think he’d faint dead away from the shock._

_We got your mock results through this morning and, as always, are very proud of you. We think we ought to be, anyway. The grading system is a little unusual – your father wonders whether having_ T _as the lowest grade mightn’t be discriminatory to the Troll community? – but we’re fairly sure you’ve worked wonders, so well done. Healer training, here you come!_

_Your father says be good, have fun and come home soon, which sums everything up nicely. Write soon and send some of those moving photos from your ball – I want to see how my dress looks after all this time._

_Lots and lots of love,_

_Mum xx_

“Who was that?” asked Fred as she shoved the letter into her robe pocket, scratching her forearm in her haste to put it away.

“One of my admirers,” she said flippantly, nudging him with the side of her shoe. “You’ve got competition.”

And though half of her mind was giggling at Fred’s proposition to duel this fictitious hometown honey for her heart (“or whatever you do in the Highlands – set some pheasants on him”), the other half was going over her mother’s words again and again. She hadn’t got around to explaining the whole career reroute issue yet, mainly because the less she had to explain about inner workings of the wizarding world, the better. Especially when she hardly knew the first thing about those inner workings herself. She was going to tell them. But saying that she was forsaking the life of a medical professional for a joke shop with two boys they’d never met, or even heard much about, and that one of those boys was cheeky, charming and a truly sensational kisser – she wasn’t quite sure yet how she was going to phrase it all. It would be a long letter home. And watching Fred mime the final blow to her erstwhile lover with a set of bagpipes (his perception of the Highlands was truly warped), she just wanted to live in the moment a little while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying! As we set up in the last chapter, the next big arc for Fred and Sophie, now that they've got over themselves and got together, is how does this relationship function in the real world, which is what I'm SO excited to write. Will-they-won't-they is so overrated; give me How-will-they!! xx


	23. Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

It was easy to forget just how massive the Black Lake was. When all she saw of it was the end near Hagrid’s hut, where Christelle and the others bobbed about on their ships, it shrank down in Sophie’s mind to little more than a glorified pond. Good for a dip in the summer and for scaring the first years (“and every year, the giant squid picks one first year, and makes them his special _friend_ ” “Jem, leave my first-years alone,” from long-suffering prefect Cho), but nothing more than a design feature.

But at nine twenty that February morning, as the weak sun shone on the surface of the water, the lake seemed to stretch for miles and miles. Maybe from up high, the horizon would have been a comforting reminder that the lake couldn’t go on forever; but at the bottom of the spectator stands, in the seats Anna and Jem had reserved for them, it was practically the only thing she could see.

“Have you seen Cho?” asked Anna right as she sat down, bobble hat tugged down firmly over her ears. “We lost track of her at breakfast.”

Sophie opened her mouth to reassure her, but suddenly realised that she hadn’t seen Cho all morning. She’d still been in bed when Sophie slipped off for an early WWW meeting (held from the comfort of the boys’ own beds – it was devilishly early), making sure the latest batch of sweets were packaged and ready for sale at the task.

“She probably went to wish Ced luck,” she said. “She’s probably on her way right now.”

The twins and Lee hadn’t spotted her either, but that didn’t mean anything, really – George had taste-tested so many Lolling Lollipops that morning that he could hardly see straight. His neck kept rolling back onto the metal railing behind him, jolting him back to life again. They didn’t have long to wait for the start of the task; stumbling down the shingle, as fast as his legs would carry him, was Harry himself.

“What time does he call this?” Jem hugged her huge winter coat tighter around her. “I got up at six for the git.”

They heard the faint sound of a throat being cleared, before Ludo Bagman’s voice rang out over the speakers. He described the task to come in a monotone, something about pondering, recovering and tarrying that all blended into one. It was a good thing the merchieftainess wasn’t here to listen to each syllable of her poetry be utterly bastardised, though the bubbles fizzing rapidly from the centre of the lake indicated she was none too happy with what she could hear.

“ _We cannot sing above the ground?_ ” Fred repeated. “Bagman shouldn’t be singing, full stop.”

“Unless he’s singing for his supper,” said George darkly. At times like these, Sophie had half a feeling that the twins would never be happy until Ludo Bagman was made utterly destitute, reduced to scrounging for sickles on street corners. Though the Canary Creams had done well in November, and the Lollipops were set to be a hit so long as no one overdosed like George, they had only earned back a fraction of the galleons they were owed. With every day that their threatening letters languished in a defunct P. O. Box, the dream of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes seemed further from reality.

“Would you shut up?” snapped Anna. “Don’t you realise what’s happening?”

“Armstrong.” George flicked the pom-pom on her hat. “I know what would make you feel better. Nice lollipop. Only ten sickles.”

Sophie opened her mouth, about to protest that that was _not_ the price they’d agreed this morning, when Anna cut her off. She swept an arm around the stadium. “Exactly how many siblings can you spot, Weasley?”

They found Ginny soon enough – giggling away with a few girls in her year, decked out in their full Gryffindor kit for maximum house spirit. Percy was poncing about somewhere at the judges’ table, holding a stopwatch and looking important. But Ron was nowhere to be found. And come to think of it, nor was Hermione. George’s eyes settled on the sunspot in the middle of the lake – murky, cold, fathomlessly deep. His little brother, lying somewhere at the bottom of it.

“It’ll be good for him,” said Fred after a minute. “Ron hasn’t had such a good wash in years.” It was the kind of statement Sophie used to take at face value – the cavalier Weasley twins, glad to see their brother in the clutches of grindylows if it meant they could mark up the price of the lollipops. Anna was certainly unimpressed and began to badger Sophie about whether Cedric’s bubble hadn’t looked a little fragile as the lake lapped at his ankles. But out of sight, Fred was holding onto her hand with a vice-like grip.

“Excuse me – sorry, dear – just going to nip past you there – thanks, Lu. And you got my tea! Angel.”

As well as having the perfect view of Percy, trying his best to have a professional conversation with Madame Maxine while having to crane his neck to take all of her in, their seats gave them the perfect opportunity to eavesdrop, right behind the press table. Reporters were speaking every language under the sun – a woman with shocking pink hair was using two Dicta-quills at once, which translated her English commentary into Spanish instantaneously. Their voices blended into one continuous hum for the most part, though Sophie caught snippets of one man’s diatribe against Bagman (“Ever responsible, Ludo Bagman is happy to expose students from three major wizarding schools to frostbite, pneumonia, and grindylow gripe, regardless of their age,” he whispered bitterly). But one voice immediately caught her attention. Rita Skeeter whipped out her quill and began chattering away. Her acid green ink stood out boldly on the page, enough for Sophie to read whatever words she couldn’t hear.

_“The course of true love never did run smooth,”_ Rita mused, painting the Black Lake as her own personal Verona. “ _Today’s Romeo is Hogwarts’ Harry Potter – the Boy Who Lived, Grew Up and Fell Head Over Heels for plain-Jane Juliet, Hermione Granger. Gasps resounded on this bracing February morning – and not just from the shock of the icy water (you’d think Dumbledore would offer his own countrywoman a hot water bottle) – when Harry plunged into the murky depths of the Black Lake to rescue his lover. The only problem? She’s already the plaything of Bulgarian Bon-Bon, Viktor Krum.”_

Sophie groaned inwardly. Everyone knew about the alleged love triangle between Harry, Hermione and Krum – it was impossible to miss the hate mail Hermione had received in recent weeks, great big letters cut out from _Prophet_ headlines and stitched together to spell out ‘leave him alone, you hag’ or the like. The Bulgarian ones, from witches for whom Krum was the closest thing to a patron saint they had, were particularly nasty. Louisa Kincaid, who got the _Prophet_ delivered surreptitiously to the side door to try and keep up with her daughter’s double life, had scribbled a postscript at the bottom of her Christmas card, asking if Hermione were really as bad as all that. Sophie didn’t blame her, even if there were no less likely femme fatale in all the wizarding world than Hermione Granger. Rita really made you believe it.

It was masterful, in some ways – how she could take the barest bones of what was happening in the task and flesh it out into a whole new being. The sun glinting on the waves became the wink of James and Lily Potter, looking down proudly on their boy, who, if Rita were to be believed, could fill the Black Lake twice over with tears shed for his poor dead parents. Where the other reporters sucked on the nibs of their quills, trying to think of the right way to phrase something, Rita just _phrased it._ Didn’t care a jot whether it were right or wrong.

_“Cedric Diggory (strapping, nice smile, the prefect you had a crush on in school but grew up to discover he didn’t have an awful lot going on for him up there) is hunting out Cho Chung, whose demure nature and sweet smile did Orientals everywhere credit at the Yule Ball –”_

“Um – Hi. Excuse me.”

Rita was so absorbed in the workings of her quill that Sophie had to tap her on the shoulder. She spun around, peering up at her through rhinestone reading glasses. “You’ve spelled my friend’s name wrong. It should be Cho Chang.”

“Aren’t you the eagle-eyed one,” said Rita with a plasticky smile. Her quill, which seemed to respond to any and all voices, hastily made the correction, going back through the copy and drawing in different vowels. Mock-confessional, Rita leaned forward, squeezed her arm. Said, “You know what it’s like with those names. All the same, aren’t they?”

“Er. No. Not really. And that _Orientals_ bit -”

“All in good time, my dear.” Rita’s sweet smile was souring; even her quill had paused in mid-air, unsure how to proceed. Sophie had a wild, half-conceived thought about grabbing the thing and retelling Cho’s entire section when Rita clicked her fingers at Fred like a waiter. Or a child. Or a particularly disobedient dog. His eyes landed on her with a gleam of mischief.

“You’re one of Arthur Weasley’s boys,” she said, eyes brightening when she caught sight of George as well. “Are you the twins?”

“Never seen him before in my life,” quipped Fred, draping his arm round Sophie’s shoulders.

Rita didn’t even dignify him with an eye roll. Her quill was noticeably perkier, however, floating right beside her head, ready to transcribe whatever pearls of wisdom the twins had to offer.

“What do you say to the fact that your brother has been chosen as the thing Harry Potter will miss most?”

“Good for Ron to be someone’s favourite,” said George, raising his voice so the quill could capture every syllable. “He certainly isn’t our mother’s.”

Sophie could just see the cogs whirring in Rita’s brain, trying to work out how she could sell the sob story of Ronald Weasley, Harry Potter’s charity case, sixth son scooped up from an overcrowded family and turned into dopey sidekick. Before she could probe the twins any further, there was a sudden splash. Cedric came spluttering to the surface, Bubble-Head Charm making him look like a very wet astronaut, dragging Cho to the shoreline. The quill slashed through its first attempts at describing Ron and leapt to capture his victory.

_“Cedric Diggory comes in just one minute outside the allotted time frame, carrying Miss Chang bridal-style to shore (your prefect fantasies are all coming true, dear reader). Fleur Delacour glowers on the sideline. She has been standing sopping wet for nigh on forty minutes (won’t somebody get her a towel? Or, judging by the looks on the third-year boys' faces, are we all enjoying the show too much?) The diminutive Delacour is still somewhere underwater – maybe little sis will sleep with the fishes tonight.”_

“Well, that’s hardly fair, is it?” Sophie said, unabashedly reading over Rita’s shoulder. “Fleur was attacked by grindylows.”

There was a report in there just waiting to be written about the gross incompetence of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, sending four teenagers into the tentacles of water demons and not giving Fleur so much as a plaster when she came out. The indignity of relegating her to fourth place for events totally out of her control; the fact that the system seemed stacked against this female champion in the first place. But Rita just sighed deeply through her nose, smile not quite reaching her eyes as she continued her monologue, quill scratching away about Fleur’s strop. Meanwhile, Krum had re-emerged.

“I still would,” murmured Jem, staring at his rippling muscles – but apparently not his shark’s head and dorsal fin – as he carried Hermione to the dock. That comment, and the disturbed look Lee gave her straight after, were enough to distract Sophie from Rita’s concluding sentences.

There were far bigger things to focus on in the next few days – Ron hadn’t been able to wipe the smile off his face since Fleur kissed him on the cheek, and they’d raked in an absolute fortune from their sweets. Lee had managed to convince a gaggle of Durmstrang boys that the British-Bulgarian exchange rate was such that one Lolling Lollipop would cost about three galleons. The boys had been in the process of pooling their money together when McGonagall arrived and put a stop to it.

“Look, honey,” Fred had shouted across to her on Monday morning. “We’re in the paper.”

He jabbed at the bottom right corner of the front page, beneath an image of Cedric coming out of the lake, water dripping off him like some kind of action hero. Sophie nicked Marietta’s copy. There, at the very end of the article, right underneath the marmite smear: _Thanks must go to Miss Sophie Kincaid, fifth year, who has developed the astounding ability to correct all my spelling errors while Fred Weasley’s tongue was jammed down her throat._

Merlin. What a first impression to make on Fred’s mother. Jem cackled when she saw it and made sure to rip out the front page, preserving it for ‘posterity’. And even though they brought it up every time she misspelled a word for the rest of the year (“Rita Skeeter’s copy editor should know better”), she really couldn’t care less. Sure, she’d rather the first years in the common room didn’t make smooching noises whenever they saw her. But if her first introduction to the wider wizarding media was as someone with an eye for detail, distaste for Rita and penchant for public displays of affection with Fred – it was probably a pretty accurate portrayal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing this one! Rita is the woman we all love to hate, but she might just have indirectly given Sophie some excellent career advice. I know race is rarely touched on in HP, but I thought it would be interesting to consider how Cho might be portrayed in the media, as opposed to less 'demure' Hermione and Fleur. Happy reading! xx


	24. I Hope I Never Lose You (Hope It Never Ends)

It had been the longest Monday of her life. At every turn, someone had been there with a wicked grin on their face, ready to make a quip about Rita’s article. George and Lee, she could take; their incessant questions about how she managed to breathe with Fred’s tongue stuck down her throat glanced off her, but she’d drawn the line at their conducting the Frog Choir in a rousing rendition of Rita’s article put to song. Cedric had been an unexpected help – his friends had been calling him ‘Bond girl’ all day, re-enacting his emergence from the lake with far more sensuality than Sophie remembered from the task. It was when some second years decided to get mouthy in the common room that she made up her mind to sack off dinner. If someone else asked her whether she wouldn’t prefer to eat her chicken and sweetcorn pie direct from Fred’s mouth, like some kind of baby bird, seeing as they were “pretty much suctioned together anyway”, she’d lose it. She’d decided to sit on top of the Astronomy Tower instead – looking up at the stars helped her remember there were bigger things in life than one dumb article. That everyone and their mother seemed to have read.

“Come here often?”

Fred was stood in the doorway, leaning against the stone and doing his best to look suave.

She rolled her eyes, couldn’t help but smile. “Merlin, where _do_ you get these lines from?”

“You love it,” he said carelessly, sitting down next to her and passing over the mug of hot chocolate he’d promised. He shivered. “Bloody hell, Kincaid. Only you would suggest romantic stargazing in February.”

“It’s the clearest night we’ve had in forever,” she replied, shuffling into his side so that the blanket would stretch around the two of them. “I wanted to come out and have a look.”

“Right.” He looked at her sceptically, arching one eyebrow (it was so annoying that he could do that – she always just ended up contorting her face when she tried). “So this rendezvous has nothing to do with that second-year who was making kissy noises at lunch?”  
“Bloody Robbie Grey.” She thought vaguely about throttling him when she got back to the common room, but the rage soon gave way to embarrassment. “I just can’t believe that your _mum_ will have read that article. What’s she going to think of me?”

“That you’re a massive slag, obviously,” said Fred deadpan, nudging her with his shoulder and laughing when she gave him a half-hearted glare. “Come on, Kincaid. My mum knows I’ve kissed people. Strapping young lad like me.”

“Yes, you’ve been beating the girls off with a stick.”

“Hey.” He looked at her in the starlight. “She’ll like you. She'll like you because you’re clever and pretty and make me shut up and do some work once in a while. Very winning combination. And Dad –”

“You’re not filling me with confidence here,” she told him as the pause lengthened. “What? Is your dad not going to like me?”

Fred sighed through his nose, leaned back on his hands. “Dad is going to love you. And he’s going to have kittens over the fact you’re a muggle.”

“Oh.” She paused. She hadn’t really thought in any detail about the fact that the Weasleys were a pureblood family. “Is he into stuff like that?”  
  
“Is he ever.” Fred wrinkled his nose, tried to explain the enigma that was Arthur Weasley. “If you think how explorers must feel about – jungles, or new species or something – that’s how Dad feels about muggle stuff. A rubber duck is the new frontier.”

“Has he ever seen one in real life?” she asked, thinking about the Scottish flag rubber duck that her own father kept pride of place in the bathroom (and her mother tried to hide whenever they had guests over).

“If you’re building up to sending him one,” Fred cautioned her, “you’d be taking his life into your hands. He’d probably faint from all the excitement.”

Sophie smiled into her mug. Whenever she’d pictured Mr Weasley, she’d just imagined an older version of Percy – cooped up in a Ministry office somewhere, poring over paperwork. But with his talent for seeing the extraordinary in the everyday, she could see more than a bit of the twins in him. She had the feeling she’d like Mr Weasley, too.

“What about Ma and Pa Kincaid?” asked Fred, slipping into that awful Scots accent again. Before he could get too deeply entrenched in it and spend the rest of the night talking like McGonagall after she’d had one too many drinks, Sophie cut him off.

“My dad – is always happiest when he’s outside. He’s lived in the Highlands his whole life and he just loves everything about it. We have to have all the windows open, all the time, so he can smell the heather. Swimming in lochs, stalking deer. He’s a total cliché.”

“And your mum?” He grinned, sporting a whipped cream moustache as he finished his hot chocolate. “You should know, I’m just imagining you, but slightly fancier. Possibly a tiara.”

  
“Actually, society women don’t wear tiaras until their wedding day,” Sophie told him automatically. Years of etiquette training couldn’t fail to leave their mark. “It’s meant to symbolise their arrival into adulthood.”

“Only someone with a very fancy mother would know that.” He cocked his head. “How did they even meet?”

She had always loved telling that story. Growing up, she’d thought it was the most romantic thing in the world. How her mother, bored the summer she’d come down from Cambridge and determined to have some fun before Grandpa Louis found her a nice boy to settle down with, had fallen head over heels for the new gamekeeper on the estate, six-foot-something Michael Kincaid. How they’d snuck into the garden late at night to see each other, hiding in the forest so they wouldn’t get into trouble. How, rather than sit and stagnate in the summer house for the rest of her life, Louisa had packed up her things, told her parents she loved them, and disappeared back over the Scottish border before anyone could stop her. She’d always wanted to be as brave as her mother in that moment. As certain that she’d found the right person.

“Wait a second,” said Fred, checking points off on his fingers. “Your dad got your mum pregnant out of wedlock; spirited her away to some Scottish castle he managed; and was five years older than her?”

“That’s about the gist of it.”

  
He let out a low whistle. “Bloody hell. No wonder your grandpa went mental.” He licked off the whipped cream moustache, looked up at Cassiopeia thoughtfully. “Good news for me, though.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“Think about it,” he said, lacing their fingers together. “I’m only a year older than you –”

“Barely six months –”

“I can’t spirit you away to a Scottish castle because you live in one year-round, _and_ I haven’t got you pregnant yet.”

She choked on her last mouthful of hot chocolate. _Yet?_

“I’m a catch, Kincaid,” he said proudly. “I’m doing unbelievably, by your family’s standards. Your grandfather will _love_ me.”

Images flashed through her mind. Fred stomping around on long country walks, pretending to chuck her into the loch and coaxing her into Quidditch matches in the garden. Fred asking to hear stories about ‘wee Sophie’, looking at all her makeshift costumes she used to make for her one-woman plays (don’t ask). Best and most bizarre of all, Fred utterly charming Grandpa Louis, totally against his will, saying all the right things about business and invention and backing yourself. It came to her with total clarity. Wherever she went in the foreseeable future, she wanted to see a shock of red hair out of the corner of her eye.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her with his foot. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“If this is about Lee and the lollipops,” she said, trying not to let on that she’d planned out the next few years of their life together, “I’m not taking the fall for that. It was his choice to accost those Durmstrang boys.”

“Piss off, Kincaid,” he said, but it was weak. He was laying on his back, staring up at the stars so he didn’t have to look at her. She lay down beside him, closed her eyes in solidarity so he wouldn’t feel as self-conscious. “You know I’m no good at this.”

He paused, unsure how to begin. “You know on Friday. When Annabelle said that Cho was underwater and Ron must be too.” There was no strain in his voice, but his grip on her hand was tightening, remembering the stress of that day. “It made me think about the day we tried to put our names in the cup.”

“Mmm.” She lifted his hand up to her lips and kissed his knuckles, nose wrinkling in distaste as she remembered Fred the octogenarian. “Please don’t ask to grow a beard.”

He laughed but it was weird; breathy. “Nah. Doesn’t do my jawline justice. But I just got to thinking. About if we’d managed to get our names in somehow – and it had been me as the champion…”

Her eyes snapped open and he rolled over to face her. “Now, steady on. I’m not saying you’re the thing I’d miss most in the whole world. I like you a lot, Kincaid, but George and I… we go way back.”

She just smiled. Waited for the urge to turn everything into a joke, replace an emotional declaration with a light-hearted one-liner, to disappear. He didn’t close his eyes this time; he trained his gaze on her hand, stroking it with his thumb.

“But even if you’re not the thing I’d miss _most_ – I’d still miss you like hell. And if it had been you that Harry had to play the hero for…” Fred Weasley of the House of Gryffindor, who made such a meal of daring, nerve and chivalry, who’d never in his life admitted to being scared of anything, said: “I’d have been terrified. I don’t want to lose you, Kincaid.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said quietly.

“I should bloody well hope not. What I’m trying to say is – I want you to be my girlfriend, Sophie.”

Lying out on rugs on top of the Astronomy Tower; watching wispy clouds float across the night sky; mugs of hot chocolate lying just out of reach. For a boy who claimed not to be much cop at this whole romance business, Fred Weasley had done a pretty stellar job.

She wriggled closer to him, cupped that jawline he was so proud of, and gave him a long, lingering kiss. “Well,” she said with a grin when she came up for air. “If you’re using my real name, you _must_ be serious.”

“Is that a yes or a no?” he asked, narrowing those warm brown eyes at her.

“It’s a yes, _obviously._ ”

She could feel him smile through the kiss. By the time they pulled apart, he was full-on mega-watt Fred, trying to tame his hair after her fingers had mussed it all up. “Romantic enough for you? There’s probably some water spell that’ll let us kiss in the rain, if you’re into that.”

“Overrated,” she said. It was cold enough without getting totally drenched. “This whole thing was surplus to requirement, actually. You won me over with the Valentine’s present.”

  
“You Ravenclaws are so easy,” he said, squeezing her hand. Sophie still didn’t know how he’d managed to find a first edition of _Peter Pan,_ a book he’d never even heard of until she mooted a Neverland range for WWW, but it had been delivered to her by owl two weeks ago, accompanied by a note reading: ‘read another bloody book. Fred/Mad Hatter x’. Her boyfriend (her _boyfriend_ ) had such a way with words.

By eleven, it really was far too cold to stay out – Fred had given her the whole blanket in the name of chivalry, but that only meant he shivered all the more, practically vibrating with cold. They clambered down the steps of the tower towards the Ravenclaw common room, Silencing Charm up around them so they didn’t have to worry about their footsteps echoing and Mrs Norris coming running.

“Are you good to get back on your own?” she asked, reminded suddenly of that night Flitwick had caught them when she had asked much the safe question.

“Have some faith in your man, Kincaid,” he murmured, pressing one last quick kiss against her. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Can’t come soon enough.”

“Who’s the one with the cringy lines now?” he said, but he was grinning fit to burst, walking away from her backwards so he didn’t have to look away. Head all spinning, it took her three whole minutes to solve the knocker’s riddle (she contemplated calling Fred back to do it for her, but her pride couldn’t take the hit). Once inside, she went straight to her bedside table to grab her parchment and quill. After days (weeks, months, really) of putting it off, she knew exactly how to tell her parents everything that had been going on.

_Hi Mum,_

_Thanks so much for the chocolates, they were sublime. Jem’s asked if you can send up some more Irn Bru, so this is me asking (but don’t, you know as well as I do it’s disgusting)._

_By the time you get this letter, you’ll have seen the report in the_ Prophet _about the second task (Cho’s alright, but she’s still got water in her ears). I know that the part you were probably most interested in had to do with me and spelling mistakes (fine then, about me and tongues) so I want to try and clear things up. If you’re reading this to Dad, which you probably are, tell him to sit down and not get annoyed._

_Fred Weasley is a boy in Gryffindor (lions) in the year above me. You might have heard of his little brother in despatches (Ron is best friends with Harry Potter) and his dad, Arthur, sometimes crops up in the Ministry section of the_ Prophet. _I met him this summer at the World Cup (with Jem and Anna and about a hundred thousand other chaperones, so it was all above board). He and his twin and their best friend are setting up a business when they leave school. It’s a joke shop (tell Dad to shut up and listen) and some of the stuff they’ve made is so sophisticated, using charms even Flitwick sometimes struggles with. We started being friends when they wanted me to get involved with the shop._

_We’ve been developing products and meeting people all year (look up ‘Zonko’ in the encyclopaedia I gave you) and I’ve really enjoyed it. It made me realise that I don’t want to be a Healer – it was a nice idea and it gave me something to aim for but it’s not what I’m properly passionate about. I’m not one hundred per cent sure what I_ do _want to do, but I think it involves writing. Reporting, maybe. But it’s kind of nice not knowing._

_Now, you’ve seen my results and you know I’m still working really hard. I’m just having fun as well. It’s not like I’ve been led astray and I promise not to disappear over the border with a baby in my belly like someone we know. I can’t wait for you to meet him. You’re really going to like him._

_Loads of love to everyone (and on second thoughts, maybe do send the Irn Bru – I can make it Jem’s birthday present),_

_Soph xxx_


	25. I Don't Wanna Know, I Don't Wanna Chase (I Just Wanna Make This Moment Stay)

“This whole OWL thing,” said Jem, curiously muffled under the weight of her Potions textbook. “I’m over it. Nice idea, getting an education. But _terrible_ in execution.”  
“Hear, hear,” croaked Anna. She’d got into a screaming match with McLaggen the night before, after Professor Babbling had taken her life into her hands and paired them up for a project. Despite his total inability to differentiate between the ancient Greek rune for ‘spear’ and the (admittedly similar) one for a crude sexual act (his translation of a battle scene had raised more than a few eyebrows), he’d still taken it upon himself to make edits to the final submission hours before the due date. Anna may have come out with a sore throat and irreparably damaged relationship with McLaggen, but some hasty Rewrite Charms had saved her grade.

Contrary to popular belief, exam season was not the most wonderful time of the year in the Ravenclaw common room. As Sophie sat trying to summon up the motivation to either refine her proposal for her careers meeting with Flitwick or get some Herbology done (she’d spent the last five minutes staring into space, trying to work out the specific charms that would be needed for the Headless Hat idea George had come up with last night), Jem slammed her Potions book shut.

“The whole point of this bloody house –” she started – “the whole point of _that bloody woman –_ ” pointing a tremulous figure at the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw, now surrounded by little painted eggs in anticipation of Easter and sporting a rather fetching pair of bunny ears – “is that you should study what you _like._ That your school experience should be an _intellectual odyssey.”_

“And on that odyssey, you need to pick up basic potioneering skills,” Cho reminded her, opening Jem’s textbook to the right page again. “It’s a necessary evil.”  
“Is it _really_ necessary that I’m subjected to the evil of Snape?” challenged Jem, who’d clearly given up on getting any more work done until dinner. “Or is that a cross we are expected to bear simply because of our _house?”_

“I know, bubs,” Sophie said vaguely. “It’s twisted. Fight the system. Down with the Sorting Hat.”

They’d never spent such a boring Easter. They’d had to sit out the annual Hogwarts Easter Egg hunt for revision purposes; otherwise, Cho could very happily have spent all day running around the grounds, eyes as keenly trained on the disapparating eggs as on the dastardliest of snitches. Fred had brought her back a rather fetching trio of purple polka-dotted eggs, but it just wasn’t the same as hunting for them yourself. But with only weeks to go until their exams started for real, a thought which never failed to turn Sophie’s stomach, all distractions had to be set aside. Even tall, red-headed distractions were on thin ice.

“Where are the boys?” asked Jem, oh-so-casual as she played with Anna’s runes flashcards, careful not to mention Lee explicitly.

“Apparition tests,” Sophie told her. “They’re annoyingly good at it.”

Apparition, as far as Sophie was concerned, was the ultimate rite-of-passage. Sure, Michael had taught her to drive when she was still fifteen, thundering along down country lines until they had to break for the odd neighbour or pheasant. But if the freedom of driving felt good, it was nothing compared to the freedom apparition offered. Sophie could still remember the Head Girl when she was a first year, who’d been a Ravenclaw too, coming into the common room waving her pass certificate and being mobbed by all her friends, who begged her to take them side-along when they next went into Hogsmeade. Now that she kept up little more than a passing interest in Quidditch and holding a wand no longer sent that same shiver down her spine, apparition was still the most magical thing she could think of.

“Maybe we can disapparate inside the exam hall,” Jem said gloomily. “I’ll need to go into hiding before my results go home.”

“You can’t apparate inside Hogwarts,” said Anna, not even looking up from her timeline (McLaggen had put the Greco-Roman traditions after the hieroglyphs, which, according to Anna, was a cardinal sin and needed to be corrected effective immediately). “Might want to brush up on your History of Magic as well, Jem.”

“Thank you, Bathilda Bagshot.” Jem lay her head down on the table and groaned loud enough that she could feel the reverberation through her skull (she said it soothed her). “Can’t we just skip to the bit in ten years’ time where we all have jobs?”  
“And you have some poor lackey to make all your potions for you?” Cho suggested, sliding the textbook across the table until the point of the corner jabbed Jem in the forehead. “No pain, no gain.”

With a sigh that threatened to blow their parchment off the desk, Jem summoned _Hogwarts: A History_ and said she supposed she could manage _one_ chapter before dinner. But the importance of work was retreating further and further into Sophie’s mind. It was funny, wondering where they all might be in ten years. Twenty-six seemed impossibly old, practically on par with Flitwick, if not Dumbledore. Sophie afforded herself five minutes’ worth of daydreaming before she had to crack on with her Charms practice. Anna would be on yet another international secondment, maybe in Egypt like the twins’ brother, Bill, but maybe somewhere in the depths of the jungle, exploring as yet uncharted territory. When Sophie imagined curse-breaking, she imagined high glamour; Anna in full desert-chic safari gear, only popping back over to England very sporadically, with lots of presents and stories to tell. Anna had a markedly less romantic view of her future career; a lot of paperwork, a lot of maths, a lot of negotiating in ancient dialects in which you aren’t totally proficient and have to cross your fingers you aren’t being desperately offensive. But by twenty-six, surely she’d have got to the exciting part of the job. She might even be jetting about with a Weird Sisters drummer in tow.

Cho wasn’t generally a woman of extremes – unless you counted her diehard passion for the Tutshill Tornadoes – but she was growing more and more attached to the idea of being a primary-school-aged magical tutor, teaching young kids to understand and control their powers for the first time. She could just see Cho in a big nursery, plenty of natural light and colourful artwork on the walls, helping children get a head start on _wingardium leviosa._ Maybe she’d even be teaching her own kids, so that they could give their father a full display by the time he came back from the Ministry, or Puddlemere United, or a Madame Malkins’ photoshoot (Cedric was a man of many talents; Sophie couldn’t pin him down to just one career).

And Jem had been training to be an Auror since she was in the womb. House Quidditch players had the use of a gym round the back of the playing fields, and most people just worked out in anticipation of the next big game (or, in the case of McLaggen, as part of a highly sophisticated body sculpting regime), but not Jem. With every squat, every pull-up, every three-mile jog, she imagined her feet pounding down the back alleys of London, in hot pursuit of a gang of Death Eaters – and she was going to out-run them all. As Flitwick liked to remind Jem in their careers’ consultations, the Ministry hadn’t taken on any new Aurors in the last two years. But as she liked to remind him, all five-foot-three and sunny smile, the Ministry hadn’t seen any Jemima Liu’s in the last two years.

And Sophie. What was she going to do? She glanced at the form she was meant to fill out before the end of the Easter ‘holidays’ (cruelly named, she thought, staring bleakly at the mountain of parchment around her) for her meeting with Flitwick in the first week back. She wasn’t looking forward to explaining for the umpteenth time how much her ideas had changed (especially after Flitwick had been such a sweetheart and given her the contact details of a Healer he knew to shadow at St Mungo’s that summer). She’d scribbled a rather general ‘WRITER’ in one of the boxes but was coming up totally dry for potential contacts. For all the twins and Lee heralded her as Rita’s unofficial copy editor – she made a point every week of reading Rita’s _Prophet_ column and trying to mentally rework it from a different (often more factual) angle – she was hardly about to owl her and ask for work experience.

It wasn’t that there weren’t writers at the _Prophet_ that she was interested in. Susan Bones’ aunt, Amelia, had done a series of articles over the last year on the history of the Wizengamot, which had developed from King Arthur’s Round Table and now presided over court dramas. Admittedly, Sophie had found more interest in the mention of Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth, and his contentious relationship with his goats, than in some of the drier legal proceedings. There was one sports reporter whose prose leapt off the page, and she’d circled the name ‘Hestia Jones’ from the sections on law and order. But the thought of writing to any of these people, asking for advice – maybe having to send in writing of her own – felt impossible.

“A coffin!” she heard Fred call delightedly to the eagle knocker – they were getting better and better at answering these riddles (which perhaps said more about the lacking security systems at Hogwarts than the twins themselves). He and George barrelled into the common room, brandishing official-looking certificates and enormous grins.

“Ladies.” Fred swept her stack of notebooks neatly onto the floor and took the seat beside her. “You are looking at men – _more_ than mere men, perhaps –”

“Some may go as far as to say gods _amongst_ men –”

“You’re right, Georgie, some may – who have passed their apparition tests. First time.”

“With _distinction._ ” George leaned back in his chair and sighed happily. “Just wait until we tell Mum. Even Perce didn’t get a distinction.”

“Ced splinched himself first time round,” Cho remembered, grimacing at the thought. “He left half the toes on his right foot in County Durham trying to get to Dundee.”

Apparently, a similar thing had happened to Lee. Jem tried not to look too interested as George told the tale – distracted by the caw of a seagull on his way back from Fife, he’d turned his head too sharply to the left (“his bad side”) and ended up stuck. The instructor had told him he’d have to wait for a change in the wind before it’d go back again, so he was in the middle of sweettalking Flitwick into throwing up a quick weather charm.

Sophie leant in and gave Fred a quick kiss. “Well done. Your mum will be thrilled.”

“George and I both passing a test? At once? She won’t know what’s hit her.” He leaned forward, tucked her loose tendrils of hair back behind her ears. “Where do you want to go?”

“What do you mean?”

He grinned at her. “Keep up, Kincaid. I’m a man about town now.” He poked her with the edge of his certificate, embossed with the official Ministry stamp. “Snap of my fingers and a click of my heels and I can take you anywhere worth going.”

“Is this you asking me on a date?” Some first years at the neighbouring table started to make kissy noises – they always goggled when the twins came in, trying to flog off their extra merchandise and tying their Gryffindor scarves around Rowena. She ignored them, drawing circles on his forearms instead. “You know, you haven’t taken me on a single date. I’m starting to think you don’t like me very much.”

Fred clasped her hand and pulled it into his chest, a look of absolute anguish on his face. “Ah, _mea culpa!_ Let me make it up to you.” He tapped her own fingers to enumerate her options. “Paris is meant to be beautiful this time of year.”

“And what about for the wizard on a budget?” she asked pointedly, looking at the hems of his trousers his mother had had to let down for the fourth year in a row. Bloody Weasleys just kept on growing.

“Money’s no object,” he declared. “We’re raking it in with the sweets. You can be my Canary Cream Queen.”

“Oh my _god._ ” And suddenly she couldn’t stop laughing. The kissy-face first years gave her an odd look, and George stopped mid-story, wanting to know what was so funny that it had to ruin his punchline about Lee and the seagull. And as much as she didn’t know how to write a letter asking to shadow a reporter, and she was dreading looking Flitwick in the face and telling him she’d changed her mind about healing, thanks all the same, and her first exam was creeping ever closer, she didn’t want to go to Paris or anywhere else. She wanted to be in the common room, listening to her friends tell horror stories about side-along apparition, feeling Fred’s thumb stroke the inside of her palm. For as long as she possibly could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten years is a long way to predict into the future, especially when something is just around the corner... Thank you guys for your patience as I build up to the third task - I really wanted to lean into these characters, establish all their hopes and dreams for the future, before we examine how those dreams might have to change. As I write this, I'm writing the very last paragraphs of this first instalment - this whole fic-writing thing has really run away with me! As always, thank you for reading and let me know what you think xx


	26. Before All Hell Breaks Loose

“Where’s Jem?”

A small tornado had hit Sophie’s desk. She looked up from her pile of History of Magic notes (you’d think _something_ would go in over five years of study) to see Anna towering over her in a total frenzy. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since breakfast. Why?”

Anna let out an indescribable noise – half shriek, half cry of a wounded animal. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to die, and then I’m going to kill her.”

“Bubs.” Sophie sat her down, tried not to make any sudden movements. “What’s happened?”

“I gave her my quill.” When Sophie just stared at her blankly, wondering whether this were really worth missing valuable Goblin Revolt revision time, Anna had to elaborate. “ _My lucky quill._ The phoenix tail.”

It was a gorgeous quill, if you knew about that sort of thing – and Sophie, whose own favourite quill was a peacock feather reserved for only the most special of occasions, definitely did. “Shit. What were you doing, letting her borrow that?”

“She was really stressed before Divination!” Anna wailed. “You know what she’s like, she’s been pulling her dream charts out of her arse for three years. She’s got no clue how to do them properly.”

Jem really did make a mockery out of Divination. She fiddled with her tea leaves until they made pretty patterns and recorded the same dream about butterflies and sausages for three weeks straight. Somehow, Professor Trelawney was able to see past all of this; she thought Jem looked such a picture, staring meaningfully into her crystal ball, that she gave her top marks anyway. Now that Jem was being assessed by people who didn’t know how fantastic she looked in her divination shawl (and, more worryingly, didn’t even _care_ ), she’d need all the luck that quill could give her.

“But I’ve got Ancient Runes in, like, twenty minutes,” Anna was saying, practically vibrating with nerves, “and I really need it. Now.”

Jem was nowhere in sight, but Sophie was pretty sure she’d turn up soon enough. Jem had an odd habit during exam season of popping up where you’d least expect her – reading her Transfig textbook in the shower because the sound of the water “helped her to think”; dangling upside down like a bat when recapping the vampire sections of History of Magic to “get into character”. Only the night before, Sophie had searched the whole tower for her before Jem emerged suddenly from the DADA classrooms, with the funniest look on her face.

“Listen.” Sophie put a hand on Anna’s knee, jiggling so fast that she was threatening to blast off. “She’ll be back any minute. She’s probably just late from lunch.” Then, the ultimate sacrifice of a friend who _really_ should be doing their own work – “do you want me to test you?”

She tried her best not to glaze over as Anna conjugated the verb ‘to curse’ in ancient goblin languages she’d never even heard of. She asked all the right questions about the construction of the pyramids and the fates that befell all those amateur graverobbers way back when (“they were speaking dialects from the Sinai regions, but what they _hadn’t_ accounted for was the wave of Greco-Roman influence…”). And just when Anna was about to admit defeat and use her second-luckiest quill, Jem came through the portrait hole, flanked by the twins and Lee.

“I’m sorry,” Jem started, but Anna batted her apologies aside, kissing her phoenix tail feather fervently and sticking it into her bun for safekeeping.

“I don’t even have time to be mad at you,” she said, giving Jem a smack of a kiss on the forehead as she went. “Okay, I’m going, Sophie, I love you, thank you, wish me luck, I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Hurricane Anna.” George let out a low whistle, taking in the piles of notepaper strewn about their study space.

Sophie grimaced, uncovering her long-neglected History of Magic textbook. “You don’t know the half of it.” She abandoned her desk, flopped down onto the sofa next to Fred. “That was at least an eight-point-five on the Armstrong scale.”

“I never want to see a ten,” said Fred wryly, teasing a quill nib out of her hair.

After hours of nothing but goblin-related information seeping into her brain, it was nice to listen to the boys scrap with each other, hear the latest gossip from the Gryffindor common room. Unfortunately, today’s news centred around another article from Rita Skeeter (“no mention of Fred’s tongue down your throat, but there’s always next time”). According to Rita’s latest missive, the love triangle between Harry, Hermione and Krum was more tortured than ever. The way she spoke about it, it were as though Hermione were the prize at the end of the tournament, rather than some rusty old cup.

“Krum’s in the hospital wing,” said Lee after a moment.

George let out a short laugh, nudging his brother with his foot. “At the hands of one Harry Potter, no less.”

“Ickle Ronnie will _love_ this.” The twins had a theory that Ron had a thing for Hermione, had done ever since she got petrified in second year (“and more so last summer,” Lee had added, “when she got hot”). Based on what Sophie remembered from the Ball – Hermione glowing on Krum’s arm, Ron seething in his handed-down hand-me-downs – she could well imagine it.

“Nah,” said Lee, leaning back and popping a sugar quill in his mouth. “It was really weird. I was in there for my head –”

“Fainting Fancy muck-up,” Fred told Sophie in an undertone; the boys were working on the last elements of the Skiving Snackbox so that they’d be up and running for next year. “Still ironing out some kinks.” Looking at the purpling lump on Lee’s forehead, that seemed like a bit of an understatement.

“And Krum’s rushed into the bed next to me. He’s got Karkaroff and Dumbledore and everyone coming after him, so I just shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. Give them some privacy. And then they start talking about Barty Crouch.”

“What, Ministry Barty Crouch?” George screwed up his face in perfect imitation of their brother’s boss, holding an imaginary monocle in his eye as he asked, “ _Weatherby? Have you been a very naughty boy?”_

Usually Lee would have laughed his head off at something like that, jumped in to voice Percy _(“oh, Mr Crouch, I’ve been such a bad boy. Let me lick your boots to make up for it.”)._ But he just sort of sighed through his nose. “Yeah. Apparently he came out of the Forbidden Forest. Like he’d been waiting in there. But he didn’t seem to know where he was.”

“Well, old blokes get like that, don’t they?” said Fred, slinging an arm around Sophie’s shoulder. “Right before he died, our Grandpa Septimus thought he was back at school. Kept trying to get Bill to do his homework for him. He thought Mum was going to give him detention.”

“I’m serious,” Lee said. Gone was the Quidditch commentator who embellished the facts and used the mic to proposition unsuspecting Chasers. In his place, a seventeen-year-old who’d just failed his bloody apparition test for the second time and looked more careworn than Sophie had ever seen him. “It wasn’t just batty old man talk. Not the way Krum told it. He couldn’t say that much – he must have hit his head pretty hard going down, he was a bit slurry – but he said Crouch kept saying ‘it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault.’”

“ _What’s_ all his fault?” George’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “He’s hardly been here all year.”

“Which is why we’ve seen so much of our dear brother,” said Fred darkly. “General dogsbody turned Triwizard judge.”

“Rags to riches,” George chimed in, looking like he’d tear his brother’s clothes to rags and run off with those aforementioned riches if he got the chance.

Lee sucked on his sugar quill, deep in thought. “I don’t know. Karkaroff didn’t know what to make of it. Dumbledore went all quiet. You know how he gets. At least Moody was there to put a stop to it before it got properly out of hand.”

“Did you just say Moody?” Jem had gone quite pale in the face. Sophie realised with a start that Jem hadn’t said a word since Anna left. A subdued Jem was always a red flag, and a silent one was practically the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. This wasn’t the quiet of an OWL gone wrong – Jem loved nothing more than a detailed post-mortem of her exams. She’d have been analysing her answers for all to hear if that had been the case. Come to think of it, Jem had been quiet all day – even at dinner yesterday. Ever since Sophie had seen her rounding the corner from the DADA classrooms the night before.

“Jem?” Sophie tred to meet a gaze that was fixed vacantly somewhere on the wall behind her, like Jem was trying to fit together two puzzle pieces that wouldn’t quite click into place. Even as she started speaking, it was clear that half her mind was still trying to reason things out.

“It might be nothing,” she started. The twins and Lee looked at each other warily. In all the time they’d known Jem – bolshy, bright Jemima Liu who always gave as good as she got – they’d never seen her so hesitant.

“I went to Moody’s classroom last night. I wanted him to go over the ghouls section again.”

Sophie looked at her friend sceptically. This, from the girl whose go-to anecdote was about Harrison Liu and the Ghoul of Geylang? Jem had known everything there was to know about the DADA syllabus this year before she’d even set foot in a classroom. More likely, she’d been trying to get Moody to boost her confidence before next week’s exam, bug him until he told her she was a ‘born Auror’ again.

Like she knew her vanity had been noticed, Jem said hastily, “It doesn’t really matter. I was on my way when I heard these – weird noises. Coming from Moody’s room.”

“What kind of noises?” asked Lee.

“Voices, at first. I couldn’t make out what was being said but they were raised.” Jem was shrinking into herself just remembering it. “Sort of – high. Like he was threatening someone.”

“Bubs, you don’t have to talk about this if it’s going to upset you,” Sophie started but Jem shook her head vigorously, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her jumper.

“And then it was more like groans,” she went on, swallowing hard. “Moody would say something, and then there would be a silence, and then he’d say it sharper and there’d be this sort of moaning sound. And the moan turned into this yelling –” She took a deep breath, leaned her head back against the armchair. “And then there was this sound like something hitting the floor.”

Fred placed a hand on Sophie’s shoulder, squeezed it tightly when she started to wobble. For someone who’d been dead set on being a Healer hardly six months prior, she didn’t do too well with descriptions of violence. She reached her hand up to hold his, grateful that someone else could be the steadying, calm voice for now. He checked, “Were you alright? Nothing happened to you?”

Jem made a noise that was half-laugh, half-sob. “Yeah. I was fine. I gasped when I heard the body. I couldn’t help it. But that was when he must have realised he forgot to cast _Muffliato._ After that, I couldn’t hear anything, just buzzing. I thought I should – you know – get out of there. Before he came out.”

They sat in silence for a moment, let Jem’s words wash over them.

“Do you think he was – like – torturing Crouch? In there?” Sophie could hardly get the words out.

“I don’t know.” Jem hugged her knees close to her chest. “It would make sense. Crouch disappears, no one knows where he’s gone, Moody says he’s sorted everything out.”

“He’s done weird shit before,” said Lee. “This is the man who turned Malfoy into a ferret.”

“Yeah, and that was a public service.” George had slid down off the sofa onto the floor, picking at loose ends of the carpet. “Do you really think Moody’s capable of something like that? He’s an Auror, not a bloody war criminal.”

“Well, I’m going to be an Auror, and I still wouldn’t feel too comfortable treating someone that way,” snapped Jem. “I know what I heard.”

Trying to move the conversation along before George and Jem ended up at each other’s throats, Sophie asked, “What do you think we should do about it?”

Jem leaned her head back against the armchair and sighed through her nose. “I don’t know. Part of me says tell Flitwick.”

“Yeah,” said Lee under his breath, “because a bloke the size of a house elf will have no problem standing up to Moody.”

“But what if he asks why I didn’t say anything at the time?” asked Jem. “Am I all, ‘sorry, Professor, I know I heard what sounded like mortal danger, but the dinner bell went and I was just so hungry’?”

“Listen, Jem,” Fred started (and an absurd thrill went down Sophie’s spine – it was nice hearing him call her friends by their names, not ‘Liu’, ‘Armstrong’ and ‘Chang’ like they were in the trenches or something). “It’s not like you were on patrol last night. You’re not even a prefect. Thank Merlin,” he added, trying to coax a smile out of her. “It’s not up to you to know what Moody does on a Sunday night. If that’s anyone’s responsibility, it’s Dumbledore’s.”

“And he’s big enough to look after himself,” agreed Lee, pulling on one of Jem’s plaits. “You don’t get to be eight thousand years old without knowing some serious shit.”

“The buck doesn’t stop with you,” Sophie said. “You can tell Flitwick you think you heard something strange last night and then you can literally leave it there.”

At last, something approaching a smile spread over Jem’s face. She nodded, said she’d speak to Flitwick after dinner. Right after she made this History of Magic exam her bitch.

Maybe one group stake-out to Moody’s quarters would have been all it took. Maybe, if they’d pushed hard enough, they could have fit together those puzzle pieces of the shouts in the night-time and that serpentine tongue and how comfortable the word ‘cruciatus’ had sounded in his mouth. But it wasn’t their job to save the world. The Boy Who Lived had done that already. It was their job to sit in the exam hall and cough up everything they knew about the werewolf code of conduct (or, in the case of the boys, make howling noises while Sophie tried to quiz Jem on the werewolf code of conduct). They would have to grow up so quickly in a few short weeks’ time. So it was only fair that they were allowed to be children now. It was only right that they fell about laughing when George’s werewolf howl gave way to a choking fit (“karmic retribution,” insisted Jem, but she went and got him some water anyway). There would be enough time for tears later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something wicked this way comes... One of the difficult things about writing any HP fan fiction is that, by definition, we already know what's coming next (especially because this isn't an AU - and I have a bad feeling about Ced's chances next chapter). So one of the things I really want to draw out is even if the plot seems 'inevitable' to us, it's not to the characters - hope that comes across! Thank you SO much for all the feedback; it astonishes me what a great reception this fic is getting. Hope you're all well xx


	27. We Were Always Meant To Say Goodbye

By the time Sophie's last exams rolled around, the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw was smothered in offerings – the smallest first year down to the most exhausted NEWT candidate had taken it upon themselves to give flowers, light candles, place biscuits snaffled from the dinner table beside her; anything that might make her smile upon you in your hour of need. It was probably a fire hazard, all those naked flames burning hopefully, especially given how packed the common room was. You had to be downstairs by eight o’clock, latest, if you wanted any chance of a seat. Sleeping through their alarms had led to a few mornings hunkered away to revise in the owlery, threatening the owls with silencing charms if they didn’t shut up. It was a tiring business, OWLs. Even though the majority of her exams had gone pretty well – she’d been positively sorry to say goodbye to her mandrake at the end of her Herbology practical – Sophie still couldn’t wait until it was all over.

“What are you going to do to celebrate?” Fred asked, commandeering her revision break. It was the first time they’d seen each other in a few days; she’d had back-to-back exams Monday through Wednesday, and Fred had allegedly been sitting his own end-of-years (not that she’d heard him talk about revision once).

“Sleep,” she replied, wishing she were joking. Anna tended to mumble in her sleep, and if it wasn’t lyrics from the Weird Sisters back catalogue (the worst nights were when she clucked her tongue to the rhythm of the drums), then it was Potions methods. Sophie had taken to listening in to these unconscious revision sessions, testing herself on the Invigoration Draught ingredients, which got her too worked up to drift off again.

“Wow. My girlfriend is _so cool._ ”

She shoved him. “Give me some ideas, then. My brain’s fried. What did you and George do?”

“Ah, you know.” He smiled fondly at the memory. “Just let off some steam.”

She snorted. She remembered now. Cho had rushed giggling into the common room, having heard from Cedric that the prefect’s bathroom had been turned into a fully functioning sauna. They’d enlisted Moaning Myrtle as an eager masseuse for when their brother went in for a dip, exhausted after a long day of Head-Boy-ing. The sight of Percy running down the corridor in nothing but a towel, glasses all steamed up and roaring with indignation, had gone down in Hogwarts history.

“Something along those lines, maybe.” She yawned, fumbled sleepily for his hand. She snuggled into his side as she said, “We finish on the day of the last task, anyway. We’ll probably be up all night celebrating Ced.”

“His valiant effort and second place finish, you mean,” Fred said firmly. “Harry’s got it in the bag.”

“Don’t make me whip out my ‘Potter Stinks’ badge." The girls had quite the collection, and not wholly for Gryffindor-bashing reasons. Cedric had felt pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing, doing the rounds at the breakfast table to ask people to remove them, so Cho had snuck as many as she could off his friend’s cloaks and hidden them away. They’d ended up using them for Charms practice, though they also made for exceptional stress relief. After particularly taxing days, the girls had marched off with their wands to create slogans as varied as ‘McLaggen Stinks’ or 'Snape Stinks'. There was a product idea in there somewhere. She tried to tell Fred as much, but his arm was in just the right place and he was so warm and it was already eight-thirty.

“Shh, love,” he whispered, giving up trying to decipher her mumblings. “I know what you’re trying to say. Diggory’s going down. Apology accepted.” She’d have to get him back for that when she woke up.

Her last exam was the morning of the twenty-fourth, a stunning anti-climax. She’d lost hours of sleep – literally – obsessing over her Potions practical, and it had been _fine._ Better than fine, maybe. Snape had just looked at her down his nose and told her she was free to go, but she’d hardly been expecting effusive praise. All those years of fantasising about tossing her cauldron into the Black Lake, having just brewed him a draught of poison, fizzled out in an instant. She’d just taken down her revision timetable and dug out their ‘GO-CED-GO!’ banners for the task that afternoon. Maybe this was what growing up meant. She’d agreed to head down to the stands early, save some seats so it wouldn’t matter if the girls got out of Arithmancy late. She heard them before she saw them – “ _we’re free!_ ” Jem kept shouting, like Fred, George and Lee had sprung her from prison, not the exam hall. Two months’ worth of hyperactivity had been stored up, ready for this afternoon. Sophie wasn’t sure her eardrums would be able to take it.

“She’s been like this since we picked her up,” Fred told her with a grimace, as Jem flung back her arms and breathed in the fresh air like she’d never smelled it before. “It’s like she’s a parrot and that’s the only thing she can say.”

“Lee’s the pirate, then,” said Sophie, eyeing their best friends with interest. As several hulking great Durmstrang students had taken the seats in front of them, Lee had hoisted Jem up on his shoulders so she could ‘see better’. A purely platonic gesture, as Jem would no doubt insist when asked, pointedly refusing to answer why she’d gone so red when Lee’s hands rested dangerously high up her thighs. So she could ‘see better’ – a likely story. Even at the very top of the stands, you couldn’t see over the hedges into the maze. In the gleam of the late afternoon sun, it was like staring at a particularly impenetrable vineyard or something. Hardly the world’s greatest spectator sport.

“They're coming!” Cho leapt to her feet, spotting Cedric in an instant. “Anna, where are the banners?”

“Do we have to?” Anna whined. “They’re so kiddish.” But she passed one over anyway. Either she couldn’t remember the hours they’d spent in the common room way back before the first task, sloshing paint around and coming up with slogans, or she was choosing to ignore the memory. Sophie suspected it was the latter. Cho didn’t seem to care, waving aloft the banner that read ‘DIG DEEP, DIGGORY!’ (Sophie had been proud of that one) and lighting up when Cedric blew a kiss up to her. They hadn’t managed to see much of each other in the last few weeks – between her OWLs and his NEWTs (was he meant to have fit in hours of study before or after wrestling with dragons?), there hadn’t been time. But now, watching him limber up in yellow and black, shooting a quick grin to his parents, pride of place in the front row, it was clear that he’d been worth waiting for. Just an hour or two, and this would all be over.

“Have you been stretching your shoulders, Chang?” asked George, looping his Gryffindor scarf around his neck in twenty-five-degree heat in the name of house spirit. Cho, who’d yet to get used to Weasley twin non-sequiturs, just gave him a look.

“You’ll need to warm up your shoulders,” he told her. “Get them nice and loose. Because they’ll be all stiff after Pretty-boy Diggory cries on them. All night long.”

“Don’t you worry yourself about that,” said Cho primly.

“Get ready for him to wave that white flag of surrender –”

“The only thing Ced will be waving is the Triwizard Trophy and a thousand galleons before Harry’s weeping eyes.”

George blanched, muttering something about it always being the ones you least expect. Even Fred looked vaguely shell-shocked, staring at Cho like he was seeing her for the first time. Cho just laughed, eyes trained on Cedric’s back. Clearly, the twins had never been on the receiving end of Cho’s pre-match trash talking.

If there was a contest going as to who could cheer loudest for their champion, it was a close-run thing. Cho and the girls went mad when Dumbledore announced Cedric’s name, whooping and stamping for all they were worth, while Lee put those commentator’s lungs to good use cheering for Harry. Durmstrang yelled Krum’s name like they were at the World Cup again, a monosyllabic war cry conducted by Karkaroff, holding Krum’s arm aloft like a champion boxer. Although Fleur’s point total languished far behind the boys’ (“it’s rigged,” Jem maintained, jostling on Lee’s shoulders for a closer look), the Beauxbatons crowd still cheered wildly for her. Christelle, Phillipe and all their friends were leading the chants, screaming unintelligibly but enthusiastically in French.

But just as quickly, silence fell on the spectators. Amos Diggory gave his son one last squeeze before he darted back to his seat. Cedric and Harry gave each other a nod – short, sharp, perfunctory – before they disappeared into the maze, the hedges conspiring to hide them from view.

“Roll up, roll up!” she heard Fred bellow from beside her, within ten seconds of Fleur entering the maze. “Come and get your face paints! Low, low price of three sickles.”

She looked at him sceptically. Art had never been Fred’s strong point; there was a reason the only drawings he’d ever done for her were stick figures. But when she turned to her left, she saw Anna’s bundle of paints in her bag, sponge at the ready.

“What?” Anna said defensively. “We’ve got nothing else to do. The boys suggested it earlier.” She cast a wounded look at the others. “I do fun things sometimes.”

“Of course you do,” said Lee supportively. “I'm sure Orsino could back that up.”

With little more than a “shut it, Jordan”, Anna called forward her first customer. With her hair loose around her shoulders and no worry lines on her brow, she looked uncharacteristically relaxed. And Sophie certainly wasn’t going to put a stop to that. Anna may have been the world’s unlikeliest children’s entertainer, but the world was full of unpredictable things.

“Can I get a badger?” asked the boy at the front of the queue, barely twelve years old and voice unbroken, clutching a Hufflepuff banner in his right hand.

Anna beamed at him. “Of _course_ you can.”

For the most part, that was how they whiled away the time. Anna agreed to designs in favour of Beauxbatons or Durmstrang – one tiny girl wanted Krum’s name written right across her forehead, so Anna gave her a snitch on her left cheek and Triwizard Trophy on the right to jazz it up a bit – but she refused any Gryffindor lions on a matter of principle. Ever the businessmen, but by far the inferior craftsmen, Fred and George decided to take on those customers themselves. They resorted to just streaking yellow and red paint on the kids’ cheeks like warpaint, but Fred looked immensely proud of himself all the same.

“Alright, Gin,” said George to his little sister, wielding the brushes like an expert make-up artist. “What’s it to be?”

“Wait a minute.” Fred rummaged about in Anna’s bag, asking, “Have we got any green?”

“I’ve got lime green?” she offered, not looking up from her detailed rendering of a broomstick.

“That won’t do,” said George with a frown. “It _must_ be as green as a fresh-pickled toad. Right, Gin?”

“Got anything as dark as a blackboard?” Fred asked, grinning as his sister scowled, turned on her heel and began to pick her way through the crowds again, muttering something about letting jokes die already.

“I’m very glad you’re not my brother,” said Sophie, raising an eyebrow as Fred pocketed Ginny’s three sickles anyway.

“I’m glad of that on multiple accounts, Kincaid,” he told her, kissing her just long enough that the queue of Gryffindor kids would make retching noises. He left George in charge of drawing replica lightning scars on the foreheads of Harry fans, turning to face her. “Mum was asking about you.”

“When? Why? What did you say?” she asked all in a rush. She’d seen Molly file into the arena earlier, leaning on the arm of what must have been the twins’ eldest brother, Bill.

“I’ll take those questions one at a time,” said Fred. He sounded almost as officious as Percy, currently glued to the stopwatch and staring at the maze like his life depended on it. “When? Just before I came to see you. Why? Because the woman reads the _Prophet_ gossip column like it’s going out of style and thinks I only take my tongue out of your throat to eat and drink. And I just told her you thought she was an idiot for believing all that about Harry and Hermione.”

“No, you _didn’t._ ”

“No, Kincaid, obviously I bloody didn’t.” He nudged her with his knee, smiling. “I said you’d smashed all your exams and would come out with more OWLs than George and I put together.”

“Not difficult,” she teased, but kissed him all the same. When Fred was roped into Lee’s ferocious game of Exploding Snap (the last matching pair had set Jem’s eyebrows alight, and Cho had had to smack her on the forehead to put them out again), she cast another look down to Molly Weasley, passing up snacks to Ron and Hermione. She was pressing sandwiches into their hands with a warm smile, spitting on her handkerchief and trying to get some dirt off Ron’s nose before he sprang away from her. Sophie felt a pang in her heart; she really hoped the OWLs talk had impressed her.

“What was that?” Anna stopped painting halfway across a Beauxbatons girl’s forehead, so it just said ‘Fle'. Red sparks had risen up out of the maze. Down by the judges’ table, Percy Weasley gave a smart nod, and a rescue team of off-duty Aurors entered the maze, holding their wands aloft.

Some of the kids in the line for face paints abandoned ship, clattered down the stands to look now that something exciting was finally happening. Cho didn’t quite breathe until the Aurors reappeared, propping up a woozy Fleur Delacour. It wasn’t until the girl whose face paint was half-finished leapt up and raced down the stairs, crying out in French, that Sophie recognised the blonde streak. It was Gabrielle Delacour, clutching her sister around the waist and asking the Aurors a thousand and one questions.

“Guess you’re out of the running,” said Lee to Christelle, who’d defected from the Beauxbatons stands to join in the Exploding Snap and patch up Jem’s eyebrows (now _there_ was a genuine Healer in the making). “Poor bird. Something seems to happen to her every task. They should watch her more carefully.”

“What, like you do?” spat Jem, instantly, irrationally jealous of a girl who’d sustained a pretty serious Stun injury.

“It is ridiculous,” said Christelle with the utmost contempt. They watched the Aurors put Fleur in the recovery position, stationing her next to Molly and Bill. “Fleur is our best student. She wins all of our duelling competitions like it is nothing.” She batted a hand into the air; ‘as easy as that’. “And now she is getting injured every task?” She glowered at Dumbledore, currently engaged in quickfire conversation with Madame Maxine. “All of this has been rigged against her. I know it.”

Lee began defending Dumbledore, then the great tradition of British sportsmanship itself, but Sophie wasn’t really listening. It was standard procedure that contestants could leave the maze early if they couldn’t cope with the challenges, she knew that; there was _one_ thing she remembered from History of Magic. But what kind of challenges? What inside your average maze could knock a grown woman out cold? She tried not to think about the possibility of poisoned plants lurking inside the hedges, some kind of miasma in the mist. Looking at Cho, whose distraction had just cost her that round of Snap, she knew she wasn’t the only one worrying.

“Soph.” Anna pressed a tub of Hufflepuff-yellow face paint into her hand, giving her a small, encouraging smile. “I’ll do the badgers, you do the crests.”

Anna was never one for huge public displays of emotion. She’d never ask you what was wrong in hushed, reverent tones that drew attention more than they deflected it (something Jem had been known to do). She just chucked Sophie a wet cloth and told her to neaten up the edges when her hand shook. It gave her something to do, and she was grateful for it.

“Hard work pays dividends, Armstrong,” said Fred, staring in awe at the piles of small change that had pooled at her feet. “Aren’t you glad we thought of this?"  
“We’re willing to take just a small fee,” George agreed, as if advertisement of her services via yells was the height of professional service. “Maybe ten per cent?”

“I’m not even paying Sophie,” Anna told them, ignoring her friend’s squeak of protest. “Why on Earth would I pay you?”

“Fame’s changed you, Armstrong,” said Fred, shaking his head ruefully. “Honestly, a woman gets off with a Weird Sister _one time –”_

Anna was in the middle of telling him to shut it so that the idiot children didn’t start asking her questions (“was he a good kisser?” – yes, he was – “is it true their new single is about you?” – no comment) when another red flicker rose up above the hedges. Within minutes, Viktor Krum was lugged out of the maze and hauled into sitting position next to Fleur, now chatting animatedly with Bill. Judging by the wide, genuine smile on her face (Sophie realised absently that she’d never seen so many of Fleur’s teeth at once), being Stunned agreed with Fleur. And judging by the broadening grin on his, Bill Weasley seemed to think so, too.

“It’s definitely a Hogwarts victory, then,” said Jem, trying to lift the mood. They had a bit of a laugh about some of the Slytherin students, who came over to Anna with their tails between their legs and asked her to replace their Krum face paints with something for Cedric.

“But make it tasteful,” one of them had warned her. “I don’t want some whacking great badger on my face.” In retaliation, Anna had written Cedric’s name in huge, looping gold script, over and over across his face, smiling sweetly when he looked in the mirror, alarmed. There was a definite buzz of anticipation in the air that hadn’t been present in the last hour. As time ticked by, the queue for face paints all but dried up. There was nothing else to do but stare at the maze. Wait for a hero to emerge.

“You okay, bubs?” Sophie whispered to Cho, who’d all but given up on Exploding Snap now.

She nodded, gave a quick smile. “Yeah. I’ll feel better once he’s out, I think.”

And as if on cue, someone finally burst through the hedge, Triwizard Trophy rolling over the grass like a spare part. Three whole schools leapt to their feet. At first, the only sound to be heard was thousands of feet clanging on metal. Then, as they spied the red and black figure that was clutching the Cup with one hand and steadying himself on the grass with the other, the Gryffindors erupted in cheers.

“YES, HARRY!” yelled Fred, grin so wide that it threatened to split his face. He whirled round to face Sophie, on the verge of saying something cheeky about those ‘Potter Stinks’ badges, when a sudden, piercing scream cut right through the noise. In an instant, one of Fred’s arms went round Sophie’s waist; the other clutched his wand, stuck in his belt loops.

The brass band came to a squeaking halt. Fleur ran towards Harry, bare feet squelching in the mud, then stopped like she’d hit a brick wall. It was the silence that was worst. She clapped her hands over her mouth. And when Dumbledore clutched Harry’s arm, shifting him slightly, Cedric’s face became visible for the first time. Pallid. Lips parted like he was about to speak. But eyes, staring blankly, that would never see again.

“Oh, my god.” Sophie heard a dull thud behind her, knees whacking against metal. Cho. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she was completely silent – like her body wouldn’t let her cry, wouldn’t let her breathe. What air she managed to take in hitched in her throat. And just when the twins crept forward, Fred taking her left shoulder and George her right, starting to ask in low voices whether she could speak, Cho began to wail. Quietly, at first. Then like it was the only sound she could make. On the field, Amos Diggory wept for his son; and a few feet up in the air, Cho Chang wept for her boyfriend, for her first love, for the evening of celebrations that would never come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot thank you all enough for 1,000 hits! TRULY astounding to me that something I started as a passion project in July because I got 'Granger Danger' stuck in my head and fell down the HP rabbit hole has reached so many people. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for following Sophie and Fred's journey so far; and buckle up as we take a darker turn..,


	28. Don't Want No Other Shade Of Blue But You

Some of Sophie’s earliest memories were the days before her Grandma Thérèse’s funeral. She’d only have been five or so. They’d driven down to Kent overnight in Michael’s banged-up Land Rover, sat in silence in the drawing room while Grandpa Louis let the cup of coffee he’d spent thirty minutes brewing go cold. Her mother would tell her to be a good girl and go play in the garden while they looked after Grandpa. In the hurry to get down, no one seemed to have realised that they’d only packed Sophie's funeral clothes. So she’d sit on the stone steps, careful not to get mud on her best patent shoes, and watch the clouds pass overhead. She’d met her grandma a grand total of five times, including one memorable Christmas (smashed ornaments, too much sherry, Michael excusing himself quietly to go for a drive), so she hadn’t been sad, exactly. But they were still a strange few days. Gloomy. And, though nobody knew how to explain it at the time, somehow the stock of tissues in the house never ran out – as if by magic.

That was her experience with death to date. And it failed spectacularly to prepare her for this. About five hours after Cedric’s lifeless body had flopped onto the field like a sack of potatoes, Cho’s parents had arrived, grim-faced, from Dundee. Cho had been admitted to the hospital wing overnight – away from ogling first years who’d never seen the girlfriend of a dead boy before – and Flitwick had relieved the girls from her bedside at around midnight, saying there was no point in their getting a bad night’s sleep, too. They’d need their energy in the morning. They’d left Cho, dozing but whimpering, face all swollen from crying, and walked zombie-like back to the common room. Sophie endured about ten minutes of tossing and turning, staring at the empty bed next to hers, before she called it quits. She had padded over to Gryffindor Tower before the clock struck one.

“Banana fritters,” she said dully to the Fat Lady, who gave her a sympathetic smile. The portraits must have had a field day, running up and down the castle telling each other the news.

When she stumbled into the common room, there were more people still up than she’d expected. Gryffindor Quidditch team members who’d played against Cedric; girls and boys who’d had passing crushes on him growing up; fellow prefects who’d watched him assure the first years clambering into their boats that there was nothing to be scared of. Suddenly it all seemed too big – too many people knew Ced, too many people knew Cho and would be whispering about her at this very moment. She was ready to turn and run, ask if she could stay in the hospital wing after all, when Angelina took one look at her tear-stained face. She disappeared wordlessly up the boys’ staircase. Less than a minute later, Fred was following her downstairs, hair all over the place and eyes latched onto Sophie's. He made up the space between them in seconds, gathering her up and not letting her go. He was still holding her when everyone else had gone up to bed, hoping they'd wake up the next morning and find it had been some bizarre dream.

“I’m so scared of saying the wrong thing,” she whispered. “You saw her. It was – I’ve never heard somebody make a noise like that.”

“Soph. Look at me.” His thumb gently wiped away her tears. “You can’t worry about that.”

“I _have to,_ ” she protested, feeling her heart go into overdrive again, just as it had when she’d heard that first sickening thud behind her. “She’s already so – I can’t make it worse for her, what would that even _look_ like –”

“Hey. Breathe. Breathe.” He wouldn’t let go until her shoulders stopped jerking; even then, he kept hold of both of her hands, squeezed them when he felt her start to panic. “That’s my point. You _can’t_ make it any worse than it already is. Her boyfriend died.”

“Her boyfriend was _killed._ ” Every premonition she’d had that year, every moment that seemed perfectly innocent at the time, took on a new significance in her whirring mind. The shiver she’d felt watching Cedric put his name in the Goblet. Cho’s wan face when they called his name. How her forehead would pucker with worry every time the tournament was mentioned.

By the time Flitwick had come knocking at the door of Craig Castle, Voldemort had already become a vanquished villain in wizarding history. Sophie hadn’t grown up like the twins and Jem had, with a war looming large in the background of their babyhood, haggard parents stretched thin with worry. As far as Michael and Louisa Kincaid were concerned, there had once been a very dangerous man. But there wasn’t anymore. So to hear Harry’s voice, young and raw and desolate, screaming into the stillness of the evening that Voldemort was back – it sent a shiver down her spine like none she’d known before.

“I don’t know how to handle it,” she confessed. “She needs us so much, and we have no idea what we’re doing.”

“I don’t think anyone does.”

“I just couldn’t live with myself if I made her feel worse,” she whispered.

“You’re not going to, baby. You’re not. There's no right way to go about it.”

Because it was all so wrong. In all the lives she’d dreamt up for her friends that slow revision day - imagining Anna telling stories of her far-flung travels, picturing Jem's medals of valour - she’d never once thought of Cho Chang as the teenaged equivalent of a war widow. Sophie could see the next few days play out in front of her, days she’d never thought to worry about. People whispering whenever Cho appeared; or, worse, going deadly silent. Being warned not to talk to the journalists, who’d set up camp outside the castle gates, awaiting an official statement from Dumbledore. Listening to her best friend cry until she used up every last drop of energy she had, before she collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

And she knew it was intensely selfish under the circumstances. But laying in the arms of a boy who’d tried to throw his own name into the Goblet – who’d tried to sign himself up for a fight to the death – she couldn’t stop herself from wondering. She’d been scared enough imagining herself at the bottom of the Black Lake, waiting for Fred to fend off the grindylows; what if she’d been the one whose champion boyfriend dropped dead in front of her?

“You stop that right now,” Fred said firmly when she told him as much. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“ _I know,_ ” she said, sniffing, knowing how weak and pathetic and ridiculous she must sound. “I’m sorry. I know I’m being stupid.”

“Yeah, you are.”

He jostled on the sofa so he was looking her right in the eye. Swallowed. Took a deep breath. “I love you.”

His chin jutted upwards, like he was defying something. “I know it’s a terrible time to say it. And I’m sorry. But it’s true. I love you, Soph.”

She couldn’t speak. Just squeezed his hand a little tighter, waited for him to continue.

“And - Merlin, this sounds stupid - fuck it, loving you is the best thing I’ve ever done. And I’m not going to let anyone stop me from doing it. Not in this world –” And here he pulled their hands, intertwined, to his chest, so she could feel his heart through her fingers. It was beating like mad. “And not in any of your imaginary worlds, either.” Cracking the very beginnings of a smile, he told her, “It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than the return of the Dark Lord to get rid of me.”

And almost instantly afterwards: “Shit. Baby, I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to make you cry, it was a stupid joke. I’m sorry.”

She just kissed him through her tears, not wanting to hear him apologise for a second more. It was part-happiness, part-grief that was coursing, and part-something else altogether. A few hours later, when George came down in search of his twin and found them, limbs all tangled together, she was still whispering, half-asleep, “I love you too. I love you too.”

***

Day one without Cedric was not off to a great start. She was running on about two and a half hours of sleep and some coffee Angelina had brought her from the kitchens (“you look like you’ll need it”). The last person she’d expected to see when she’d climbed out of the portrait hole, still plaiting her hair, was Flitwick. She instantly remembered the running joke she and Fred had about Flitwick the voyeur, who always had a sixth sense for when they darted behind a tapestry. But the look on his face today was not the same long-suffering grimace he pulled when he told them to hurry along now and go their separate ways after dinner. There was no ghost of a smile.

“Hi, sir,” she said stupidly, fingers paused mid-braid.

But Flitwick nodded like this was perfectly ordinary. “Miss Chang is breakfasting with Madam Pomfrey,” he said delicately. He began to walk down the corridor, Sophie following at his heels. She hadn’t expected Cho to have been discharged just yet, but it still twisted her stomach to imagine her friend all alone. Then again, if the alternative were pouring out cereal while funereal hangings were being put up for her dead boyfriend – perhaps Cho was better off in the hospital wing.

“Miss Armstrong and Miss Liu are already with her,” Flitwick added. He gave her a meaningful look over his glasses. “They told me where to find you. I trust you do not mind.”

“Of course not,” she said hurriedly. “About that, sir – I know I shouldn’t have been out of my dorm –”

“Sophie,” said Flitwick, with such simplicity and sympathy that it took the breath right out of her. “If there was ever a night where such a thing would be permissible, it was last night.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Maybe Flitwick was a little embarrassed by his emotional ‘outburst’; for someone usually so put-together, calling her by her first name was the equivalent of pulling her in for a bear hug. She felt a great pang of affection for Flitwick as he took her on the ‘scenic route’ to the hospital wing, circumventing the throngs of reporters still gathered outside the castle gates. He gave Cho a tiny nod when they reached her bedside, looked critically at the stacks of wholemeal toast she’d been given versus the two bites she’d eaten and disappeared to discuss her food intake with Madam Pomfrey.

“Hi, bubs,” said Sophie, settling into the bedside chair. Curtains had been pulled around the bed for ‘privacy’, ever since one particularly invasive (and abnormally short) reporter had tried to sneak into the hospital wing pretending to be an injured first-year. But whatever personal space she now had, safe from the outside world, was counteracted by Jem, who’d squished herself onto the mattress, hugs more welcome now than ever. Anna was sat at the foot of the bed, trying to work out a plan of attack for getting her friend to eat her toast (and, in an ideal world, a boiled egg).

“Hi.” Cho’s hair hung lifelessly around her face. Madam Pomfrey had tried her best to scrub off the face-paint of the evening before but Sophie could still make out Cedric’s name emblazoned on Cho’s forehead in flecks of gold; like she’d been branded with it. With a strength that Sophie would never understand, Cho offered up a watery smile. Just like she had on the night of Halloween, when Cedric’s name was pulled from the Goblet.

“We got you some food,” Anna said quietly, passing Sophie some pastries in a napkin. “Figured you wouldn’t have time to eat.”

“Is it okay if I – ?” she started, but Cho waved a weak hand; ‘go ahead’. She might not have been able to keep food down (her mother had held back her hair last night as she threw up every last morsel in her system) but she didn’t mind if others ate. All the same, Sophie tried to keep chewing noises to a minimum.

“Where are your parents?”

“With Dumbledore,” Cho managed, swallowing hard. Sophie’s stomach sank. Cho’s parents had never been the headmaster’s biggest fans; they’d sent a few strongly worded letters in the last years, cautioning him against cancelling exams so often, saying it did little to boost their confidence that Cho would come out of Hogwarts in one piece. Now, with their daughter’s heart decidedly, publicly, permanently broken, Sophie didn’t think anything Dumbledore had to say would be able to calm them down.

“Miss Chang?”

  
Sophie had never heard Madam Pomfrey speak so gently – she tended to give Cho a lot of tough love, sending her out with a patched-up wrist and a reminder not to dive quite so low on the broom next time. But these were no ordinary times. She couldn’t wave a wand over Cho’s heart, Cho’s mind, and make everything good as new.

“There are people outside who’d like to see you.”

“Who?” asked Jem, instantly on guard. “We already told Skeeter we’ve got nothing to say to her.”

Sophie looked at her friend, aghast. Surely Rita hadn’t come up to the hospital wing? Surely she had a basic grasp of human decency in practice, even if it didn’t always come across in writing? Before her blood had too much time to boil, Madam Pomfrey shook her head.

“It’s –” She trained her gaze on the corner of Cho's duvet. “It’s Mr and Mrs Diggory.”

A pause to absorb the impact of the words. Study Cho’s face. Work out how to proceed. This, then, was how most conversations about Cedric were going to play out for the foreseeable future. After a moment where her gaze seemed to turn inward, Cho nodded. She tried to sit up properly as Madam Pomfrey fetched the door. Jem got off the bed but crouched close-by, always within touching distance, like a guard dog.

Amos Diggory was taller than Sophie had expected. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise – his son was – had been – six foot since he was fifteen. He’d just looked so small, cradling Cedric’s body on the field, refusing to let the medical team touch him until the very last minute. He was still crying. Sophie wondered whether he’d stopped. He leaned on his wife, Araminta, as he hobbled to the bed.

“You’re Cho,” said Araminta. It wasn’t a question. They were the only four students in the hospital wing that morning, and Cho looked the most like she’d been to hell and back. And, of course, in happier days, Araminta had seen Cho in snapshots from the Ball. Read descriptions of her in letters from her son ( _got to dash, no more for lack of time, lots of love, your Ced_ ). Even if Cho hadn’t given her a shaky nod, she’d have known.

Amos wasn’t fit to speak; just sat in the chair next to Sophie and stared

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Cho whispered. Beautifully brought up. As if it weren’t her loss, too.

Araminta closed her eyes tightly, shook her head. Banished tears. Or perhaps they refused to come. “He was always such a brave boy. He would have put up a good fight.”

Against the Dark Lord? Something flashed through Cho’s eyes for a second, something angry and hurt and confused. That declared that ‘brave’ was not enough, could never be enough, not in a world where winning a silly schoolkid competition came with a death sentence.

“You are a beautiful girl,” said Araminta at last. “I know you made my son very happy.”

“He made me very happy.” And then her bottom lip went and Cho was clutching onto Jem’s hand like she was at sea and this was her lifeboat. Amos began to shake with sobs, harder than before.

“We’ll give you some privacy,” murmured Anna. Cho would get enough of people watching her cry at the funeral tomorrow (and every day hereafter). It seemed only fair that she got to have one last cry on her own. The three of them studied each other’s faces, puffy from lack of sleep. Sophie was about to ask them how Cho had been before she’d arrived this morning, whether her parents had been more of a help or a hindrance, when they heard Madam Pomfrey’s voice above the noise.

“Nine months together in the staff room,” she was saying, “and I never suspected a thing. I mean, they’re strange, those Aurors, aren’t they, Merlin knows the things they see.”

Her voice began to shake. “If I’d known – if I’d just asked the right questions – and now that poor boy, that dreadful way –”

“Poppy, you weren’t to know,” said Flitwick soothingly. “Professor Moody was a law unto himself.”

“What we _thought_ was Professor Moody,” Madam Pomfrey said, sniffing.

Sophie’s head snapped to Jem in a second.

“What?” asked Anna, but the tremor in her voice told them she’d already pieced together half the story. “What is it?”  
Of course, Anna hadn’t been there. She’d whirled off to Ancient Runes singing a song of thanks for the return of her lucky quill. She hadn’t seen Jem pale-faced, uncertain, recounting the strange noises she’d heard from the DADA classrooms. Sophie had all but forgotten that day; it was lost in a haze of face-paints, final exams and funeral preparations. But it all came back to her now.

Jem choked out a sob, sprinted around the corner and grabbed Flitwick’s wrist, wouldn’t let go or quieten down until he agreed to tell them everything. Technically, all Hogwarts teachers weren’t meant to tell the students any more than they needed to know. But Sophie, Jem and Anna already knew far more than most – you can’t sit in the hospital wing with the dead boy’s girlfriend and not hear about what’s going on. Flitwick supposed there wasn’t too much harm in telling them the unabridged truth.

Sophie almost didn’t believe it. It was the kind of the thing she’d have deemed unrealistic in a book or film. Laughable, really, that a convict could escape the world’s most highly fortified prison with nothing more than a potion and a mother’s love, like something out of a fairytale. That the same convict could kidnap the most fearsome Auror this side of the Atlantic. That he could go to endless lengths to try and get one boy killed, only for his plan to be thwarted by the sportsmanship and genuine, inherent goodness of the ‘spare’. But it was true.

Which meant that Jem had been right. Sort of. She hadn’t guessed that the sound of something hitting the floor was the body of her hero, or that the voice doing the taunting and the torturing was some minister’s son determined to be a scourge on society. But she’d heard voices. She’d voiced her concerns. And Cedric was still lying in a coffin, awaiting burial.

“Sir, I knew something was happening,” she said frantically, tears pouring down her face. “If I hadn’t – it’s all my fault.” Then, with a wave of grief hitting her afresh, knocking the breath out of her, “Ced _died_ and it’s all my fault.”

“Miss Liu,” said Flitwick sternly, drawing himself up to his full height. “You give yourself entirely too much credit.”

Jem stopped. Hiccupped. Flitwick continued, looking at each of the girls in turn.

“It was not you that wielded your wand against Mr Diggory. It was not you that submitted his name for the tournament.”

“But if we’d known about Moody -” Jem insisted. 

“We did _not_ know. You are allowed to be frustrated. You are, of course, allowed to grieve the loss of a dear friend and fellow student. But you cannot allow yourself to indulge in the folly of assuming that _if only you’d said this,_ or _done that,_ things might have been different.”

They hung their heads. Three girls who prided themselves on being able to answer any riddle, crack any code, find the solution to any problem, if they searched far and wide enough for it. Trying for the first time to grapple with something that had no obvious answer. Not for the first time that morning, Sophie remembered her five-year-old self trying not to get her funeral clothes dirty. Death was no more understandable now than it had been then.

“Now,” said Flitwick, not unkindly, summoning a handkerchief for Madam Pomfrey, who ‘needed a moment’. “I suggest we spend less time wondering what could or could not have been done many months ago. And more time attending to Miss Chang.”

Sophie watched Amos and Araminta leave the hospital wing. They were leaning all their weight on each other, to the point where it seemed impossible they could stay upright. But perhaps, she thought to herself, this was what the coming days and weeks would look like for them, too. Cho leaning on her, Anna and Jem; each of them leaning on each other. If you took away any one of them, the whole thing would collapse. But if they stood together, put one foot in front of the other - they might just be able to make it out the door.


	29. Whatever My Man Is, I Am His (Forevermore)

“There is much that I would like to say to you all tonight.”

That must be the understatement of the century, Sophie thought dully as she stared up at Dumbledore. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him in all black before. He favoured brighter colours, short hats to offset that magnificent beard; anything that fit her childhood vision of exactly what a wizard should look like. But, today, he refused to play ball, insisting on going against everything she knew. And wasn’t that just typical, for this most atypical of final feasts? It was like a bad game of ‘spot the difference’. The teachers were all stood behind their chairs, as they should be – but, rather than looking out at his students, taking stock of who was listening and who was lost in a daydream, Flitwick was concentrating hard on a spot in the middle of his plate. Harry Potter was at the Gryffindor table, fresh from another act of heroism, which was final feast all over – but there was no happy flush on his cheeks. He’d more than brushed with death this time. He’d seen its face. And though the hall was filled with three times as many students as normal, you could still hear a pin drop when Dumbledore spoke.

“I must first acknowledge the loss of a very fine person.”

Sophie’s eyes flickered over to the Hufflepuff table. In the middle of a group of seventh year boys, who liked to call each other by their surnames and bet on Quidditch matches and sneak up food from the kitchens, was an empty space. Five boys had been sorted into Hufflepuff in 1988, and four of them would be graduating this summer. They’d made tenuous plans to backpack around Eastern Europe, volunteer at a dragon sanctuary for a few weeks. They’d made a pact years ago that they’d pool their first ever pay packets together and have a wild night on the lash at the Leaky Cauldron. They’d fought, half-seriously, about who would get to be best man at each other’s weddings and ended up with an elaborate swap system that all relied on Timothy Mayhew getting married before 2000. But one of those boys would be forever stuck in the last millennium. The body of Cedric Diggory was not packed in tightly next to his friends, but on its way to Ottery St Catchpole, that strange little village in Devon that Cho had never got to visit and likely never would.

“ _To Cedric,_ ” murmured those around her. Sophie lifted her goblet up a split-second too late, jolted back to reality. But no one was looking at her anyway. They were looking at Cho Chang, toasting the memory of her dead boyfriend, refusing to swallow any of her pumpkin juice for fear she’d be sick.

Sophie had sat up with her late last night, drawing shapes on her back as Cho tried to retch up food she hadn’t eaten. She was surviving on water and vitamin supplements, and the tiniest bit of fudge her father had spent two hours getting her to eat. Cho had always loved final feasts – stuffing her face with Eton mess, trying to catch strawberries in her mouth (she had a sixth sense for it, tracking the berries in the air like a snitch). At last year’s feast, she’d missed a strawberry, and it ended up splatting Cedric right in the face as he came over to wish her a happy holiday. Her jaw had almost unhinged in shock but Cedric just wiped the juice out of his eyes. Laughed.

“Cedric Diggory was murdered,” said Dumbledore, gripping the edge of the lectern. “By Lord Voldemort.”

A ripple effect of whispers swept across the hall. One by one, people snuck furtive glances at the Ravenclaw table. Sophie wondered what they were looking for. Did they want Cho to cry, or would that be drawing attention to herself? And if she didn’t cry, would they say that she’d never be in it as much as he had, that he had deserved a girlfriend who’d mourn his memory? Were they expecting her to get it right, or were they just determined to say she’d done it wrong? Somewhere, a thousand miles away, a headmaster called his students to arms. Told them about Ministries of Magic, about Harry Potter, about the importance of placing trust in one another. Of being friends. Sophie’s friend had been one of the most trusting people in the world. And when he’d lifted the Triwizard Trophy alongside Harry, he’d put that trust into sportsmanship and fairness and doing the right thing. And he’d ended up slumped on the field glassy-eyed anyway.

“How are you feeling?” Fred asked her in a whisper as they filed out of the hall. _My leg’s fallen asleep,_ she wanted to say, stupidly. They’d stood to attention while the funereal hangings were lowered and she’d spent so long staring down at her feet respectfully that she thought she had a crick in her neck. It was ridiculous, but that was the only sort of thing she could focus on.

“I’ve been better,” she settled on. Around them, students were crying. Sophie didn’t blame them, especially the little ones. If her first year, characterised by discovery and enchantment and whimsy, had ended with a mass funeral for the boy who’d fished her out of the lake when she fell in on her boat ride (as Cedric had always done, without fail, each year he’d been a prefect), then she would have cried too. Something inside her seemed beyond tears just then. She held onto Fred’s hand – partly so she didn’t get tossed away from him in the sea of sobbing students, and partly to have something to touch, to feel. She’d promised him that she wouldn’t spiral, wondering what would have happened if the cards had been dealt another way. But that didn’t stop her from being acutely, agonisingly grateful in that moment that Fred Weasley’s hand was warm to the touch.

“I’ll feel better tomorrow.”

It was vague, but Fred nodded like he understood. Cho’s parents were taking her home the next morning – by special train that went direct to Dundee. No more stops at Kings’ Cross where she could remember a blissful, fourteen-minute ‘goodbye’ last summer, where Jem and Anna had been forced to distract Cho’s parents until Cho rounded the corner again, lips puffy and smile radiant, Cedric standing off in the distance, a sheepish grin on his face. On the one hand, once Cho was out of the dorm, Sophie had half a chance of sleeping properly. On the other hand, once Cho was out of the dorm, she wouldn’t see her friend all summer.

“You could come in with me tonight,” he offered, ears tinged pink at the lobes. “If you want. The boys wouldn’t say anything. And McGonagall wouldn’t mind.”

How she wished she could. How she’d wasted every night since they got together, _not_ sneaking into his bed and feeling his arms wrap around her, rooting her, for better or worse, in the here and now. But there were bigger things to take care of. “I think I really need to be with Cho tonight,” she told him, squeezing his hand one-two-three. “But thank you.”

He kissed her once on the forehead, caught up to George and Lee, who were consoling a weeping Alicia Spinnet. Sophie screwed her eyes shut. Steeled herself. It was going to be another long night.

“Can I ask you guys something?” Cho asked in a small voice.

Sophie instantly put her book on her bedside table, gave Cho her full attention. Twenty minutes had passed already of companionable, purposeful, ‘we’re-here-when-you’re-ready’ silence; Cho could ask them to walk over hot coals and they’d be there with the matches.

“I know this will sound really odd,” she said carefully, “and really morbid. But I’ve thought about it a lot. And I think I need to do it before I go.”  
“Anything, bubs,” said Anna.

“I want to do my own funeral. For Ced.”

Sophie shot a glance to Anna and Jem, who looked just as confused as she did. Araminta had told them last night about their plans to bury Cedric at home, in the apple orchard where he used to practise Quidditch. She’d said that it would be family only. Cho had burst into a fresh bout of tears at that, but Sophie thought she’d understood. If you lose your only son in the most public arena possible, it’s hardly surprising that you’ll covet your privacy to mourn.

“Don’t you remember?’ said Jem, as gently as she could. “He’s on his way home. We – you can’t see him.”

“I don’t want to see him,” Cho said. “It’s – there are things I wanted to say to him. And I won’t get to.”

In another timeline, Cedric and Cho were walking hand in hand in the moonlight, finally taking that midnight punt across the lake they’d always joked about. Cedric had won the tournament, or maybe he hadn’t – but he had a victor’s glow on his face anyway as he looked into Cho’s shining eyes. Eyes that now, in this timeline, were red-rimmed, stinging from tears.

“How do you want to do it?” asked Anna unexpectedly. Cho peered at her from behind her curtain of hair. Sighing through her nose, Anna sat upright in her bed. “As in, do you want it to be like you were speaking tonight? Do you want us to get up?”

“No.” Cho stumbled over her words, like she hadn’t thought she’d get this far; but there was a strength to her voice that Sophie hadn’t heard all weekend. For the first time since Fleur Delacour’s scream pierced the evening air, Cho looked determined. “I don’t want it to be like – I don’t want to make it about You-Know-Who.” She swallowed, forced herself to continue. “Or about Harry. I want to talk about Ced when he was alive.”

That was how, five minutes later, after Jem had searched out the lighter she kept hidden in her bedside table, Sophie found herself sat on top of her duvet in her pyjamas, holding a candle. Once again, all eyes were on Cho Chang – but they weren’t ogling her to see whether her face was blotchy from crying or whispering about how they’d heard her screaming in the hospital wing the night before. They just waited patiently.

“We’re – all of us – want to –”

“We’re gathered here tonight,” started Anna, when Cho’s bottom lip was wobbling too much for her to begin, “to give thanks for and celebrate the life of Cedric Diggory.”

“Cedric was one of those people who won you over right away,” Sophie said, smiling faintly at the memory. “When he first came into our lives in fourth year, it was when he gave Cho a minor concussion.”

“Merlin, I’d forgotten about that,” breathed Jem. Cho touched her fingers to her forehead gingerly, a ghost of a smile on her face.

“And if it had been anyone else, they’d have stayed out of her way, let her cool off before they went to apologise. But Ced came.” She remembered how they’d squealed over it in the dorm last year, asking Cho for a play-by-play of every touch, every glance, every word. “He was standing by her bed with flowers as soon as she woke up. And that –” now her lip was starting to wobble too – “was the beginning of an amazing year together.”

Cho had screwed up her duvet cover between her fingers, like she was using it as an anchor. “Ced was all of the things that I am not,” she said carefully. “All the things that I tried so hard to be. Like – he was –”

“Take your time, bubs,” Jem whispered, stretching out a hand for Cho to hold. She took it. Held it tight.

“He was amazing with kids. They instantly looked up to him.” She remembered this year’s journey up, her first in the prefect’s compartment. She’d never been able to get too comfortable with his arm round her shoulders; if some kid came up to them, green in the face, moaning that they were travelsick; or frantic having lost their owl; or crying that they wanted to get off and go to the local comp after all, Ced would dash off at a moment’s notice. Kneel down beside them. Listen. “And the reason they were like that was because they could tell – anyone who’s ever spoken to Ced for more than a second knows that he is the kindest, most genuine boy on Earth. And I love him.” She finally allowed herself to let out a sob. “I love him _so much._ ”

“ _Baby_.” She’d set Jem off now, who had to reach out for Anna’s hand to anchor her in turn.

By the end of the night, they’d all ended up on Cho’s mattress, limbs all tangled together, not quite sure whether they were asleep or awake. When they grew too tired to keep their eyes open (it’s an exhausting business, mourning the love of your young life), they whispered to each other, words slurring together as they told story after story about Cedric. How he’d given Cho’s muggle neighbour the shock of her life after apparating right in front of her, miscalculating the distance in his hurry to make their cinema date. How Anna had harboured a secret, fervent crush on him, around the same time as she was desperately in love with Gilderoy Lockhart (dark days, but it got a wet giggle out of Cho). How he’d already made meticulous notes of every Hogsmeade weekend coming up in Cho’s sixth year and planned on visiting the castle on every single one.

Day two of Cedric being gone had been no more a resounding success than day one. The grief still stabbed at Cho unexpectedly, hitting her like it was the first time. When she walked out of the Hogwarts gates tomorrow morning, propped up by her mum and dad, she wouldn’t get to leave her grief packaged neatly in a bundle by the spectator stands, wrap it in one of those black hangings they’d strung up in the Hall that night. She would have to take it with her, wear it, until she got used to its weight around her neck. But in the light of early morning, drifting off to sleep with her head nestled in Anna’s shoulder, Sophie’s arm flung across her stomach, and Jem’s hand never once letting go of hers, the burden seemed that tiny bit lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy stuff. I got the idea to do a kind of counter-funeral when I was rewatching 'The Good Place', and saw how they did a similar thing towards the end of season 4. Mourning your friends is never easy, especially not at that age, but sometimes getting stories out in the open can take a weight off your shoulders - I hope I expressed that. Next chapter is the last chapter for this instalment of the fic!! You'll have to stay tuned for a few months for the second one (which is going to be both the events of OOTP + HBP) but I am so so grateful for the incredible reception and feedback you guys have been giving on this. Thank you the world and catch you in a couple of days xx


	30. Starry Eyes Sparking Up My Darkest Nights

“Got any Alberta Toothills?”

“Go fish.”

_The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same_. Sophie had never really understood that statement before. It was the kind of thing her mother used to trot out, smiling knowingly and promising she’d ‘understand when she was older’. In her sixteen years to date, Sophie had had her fair share of big changes – nothing had stayed the same after Filius Flitwick knocked on the door of Craig Castle, ten-year-old Sophie trailing behind him, gobsmacked (she’d never been taller than an adult before; it was a real novelty).

Ced’s death had been the biggest change of all; the passage from innocence to experience. Cho, who should have been keeping the first years in line in the prefects’ compartment, had been taken home a few days early by special permission from the headmaster. When the teachers waved off the train at the end of term, Sophie could have sworn she’d seen tears glinting in McGonagall’s eyes. Maybe she’d just been staring into the sun. But in all the mourning and the uncertainty and the anxiety, she, Jem and Anna had taken a compartment together. They were in the last throes of a Chocolate Frog tournament. Anna was cheating. These were the only true constants in life.

“Oh, piss _off._ ”  
“What?” Sophie turned away from the view of the rolling hills, faced Jem, who’d never looked so scornful in her life.

She tossed the card over to Sophie like she couldn’t stand to look at it a second longer. “They’ve only gone and put her _boyfriend_ on a Chocolate Frog Card.”

“He’s not my _boyfriend,_ ” Anna protested, but she couldn’t hide her smile when the portrait of Orsino beamed up at her, twirling his drumsticks in one hand. “And he got put on last summer, anyway. Remember, I got that special signed one?”

“Of course you did.” Jem looked at Anna like she had two heads. “That’ll be my lasting memory of this year. Annabelle Armstrong getting off with a Weird Sister. That’s what they’ll all be talking about in years to come.”

“Yeah, I reckon the return of the Dark Lord will be ancient history by then.”

They sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then Sophie burst out laughing. A proper belly-laugh. Anna, relieved, laughed too, like she couldn’t quite believe what she’d said, even as she repossessed the card for ‘safe-keeping’. That only sent Jem off into hysterical giggles, accusing Anna of having all the subtlety of a galumphing goblin (“are you going to sleep with him under your pillow?”). They’d come back after the summer, Jem prophesied, and Anna would have ‘Gimme M-Orsino’ tattooed across her forehead.

And, Merlin, if it didn’t feel good to _laugh._ Without worrying that people were looking askance at them and judging. Because, obviously, Anna would never have said it had Cho been with them, and if they’d heard the joke come out of anyone else’s mouth, even the twins or Lee, they would have hexed them into oblivion. But after ten days of being at the epicentre of grief, the poster girls for mourning, it felt so wonderful to make a joke. Their lives had begun to change forever, not that they were able to really appreciate that yet. And although shadows had been cast over Hogwarts that would only grow and darken, it felt good to be speeding away into the sunshine, even if only for a little while.

“Have you seen – Soph!” Fred’s head popped round the door of their compartment. He seemed faintly out of breath as he asked, “Can I borrow you for a moment?”

“We’re actually in the middle of a very important tournament –”

“Pack it in, Armstrong,” Fred interrupted. “We all know you’ve been cheating anyway.”

Anna’s eyes narrowed at Sophie in her patented Look Of Betrayal. “I can’t believe you’d tell him I cheat at cards.”

“She didn’t need to,” he pointed out, bouncing almost imperceptibly on the balls of his feet in his hurry to get away. “You tried to rip me off playing Gobstones at New Years’, remember? After you got kicked out of your own tower for much the same thing, if I recall.”

“You can’t cheat at Gobstones.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

They left Anna to defend herself to Jem, supremely disinterested and playing tic-tac-toe with herself on a bit of old parchment. Fred took Sophie by the hand, led her down the corridor to the gap between their compartment at the next. The rattle of the train thundered right through her like a bassline as they stood, her head against his chest, watching the Highland hills zoom past.

“I can’t wait to go home.”  
“Charming,” said Fred, voice muffled against her hair.

“You know what I mean. It’s been a weird couple of weeks.” Even before the loss of Cedric and the broken heart to end all broken hearts, she’d been up to her neck in OWL revision, refining the list of products ready to go into development at the Burrow that summer in snatched spare moments. She hadn’t had a break from high-octane emotion in what felt like forever. “All this, because of one stupid tournament.”

He pressed a quick kiss on the top of her head, let everything she wanted to say but didn’t know how go unspoken. After a moment had passed, he said, all casual, “Some good things came out of it, too.”

“Yes. I know how devastated you were to see the back of Phillipe.”

Fred snorted.

It had been odd, watching the students pile off the Beauxbatons ship that had become such a part of the landscape over the last few months, bundled into their Abraxan-drawn carriage for their long journey home. Christelle had just seized Sophie’s arm, about to initiate an Unbreakable Vow that they’d be pen pals next year, when Madame Maxine barked something stern at French and she’d jumped in with the others. Even with a plain old vow, just a good old Muggle pinky promise, Sophie felt pretty sure they’d stay in touch. Christelle was a good laugh – and she’d been wonderful with Cho in the hospital wing. Her own ambitions to become a Healer had led to a few heated exchanges with Madam Pomfrey, in which Christelle insinuated that Cho wouldn’t get this sort of treatment in France, to which Madam Pomfrey replied in no uncertain terms that she didn’t care one iota what they did in France. But when it was just the two of them, Christelle had been the perfect distraction, telling Cho all about her upcoming work experience with the Tutshill Tornadoes physiotherapy team. It was the most animated Cho had been since Cedric’s death. She clamoured to know whether it were really true that Merwyn Fenwick were narcoleptic, or if it was just a lasting concussion after a nasty Bludger to the head. Anyone who could cheer up Cho to such an extent was well worth keeping around. As for Phillipe, they’d shared a quick hug goodbye, but he’d had little more profound to say than to tell her to bet on Black Caviar in the winged horse races next week – he had a good feeling about him. Fred had smiled broadly waving off the carriage, not even pretending to be sorry to see him go.

“The prize money is pretty amazing, though,” he said quietly.

“Merlin, I know.” She sighed wistfully. “What I would do with a thousand galleons.”

“I know what I’d do.”

“What’s that?”

“Rent out Number 93, Diagon Alley.”

She spun around to face him at lightning speed. Sure enough, glinting in the afternoon sun were scores of galleons, pooled in his hands for her viewing pleasure. His teeth shone almost as brightly as he grinned down at her.

“Tell me this isn’t blood money from Bagman,” she managed.

“Would you visit me in prison?”

“Please,” she retorted, unable to tear her eyes away from the galleons and look up into his eyes, gleaming with mischief. “You’d have tunnelled out and become best pals with the superintendent before I’d even owled over your bail money.” She held one of the coins up to the light, watched the sun bounce off it, casting golden beams onto the carriage door. It wasn’t a dream, then.

“Number 93? Really?” she asked breathlessly, latching onto just about the only thing she could make sense of. As if it would have been different if it were number 62 – number 18 would be a foregone conclusion.

“We need to look round the premises,” he said, pouring the galleons back into his inside robe pocket. “Get a surveyor in, probably. But Georgie and I are pretty sure. This is the one.”

“Wow.” This time last year, she’d never even heard of a wicked wheeze, Weasley or otherwise, much less been involved in their development. And now, after months of dreaming things up in the middle of prep and testing products on the Quidditch field in case of huge explosions, they were going to have a real shop. In the midst of all the darkness of the past fortnight, there was one small spark of light. A WWW firecracker, no less.

“What do you say, Kincaid?” he asked, hands resting on her waist. “You want to come check it out?”

“Really?”

“Course,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re the only reason we’re selling. ‘Sweets that make you feel a bit sick’ just doesn’t have the same ring as a Puking Pastille.”

“You only love me for my linguistic capabilities.”

“You’re right,” he said with mock-sincerity, hands trailing down her back and cupping her arse. All innocent and wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t see the curve of his grin: “Can’t think why else I’d stick around.”

It was only the hysterical giggles of a group of first-year girls, noses pressed up against the window of their compartment, that stopped them from going any further.

“Bloody voyeurs,” said Fred against her lips. She slapped at his hand, laughing, when she saw he was flipping off the first-years. The last thing they needed was for the girls to go running to Marietta, who’d invariably tell Jem and Anna that Sophie Kincaid had been written up for public indecency on the Hogwarts Express. She’d never live it down.

“Fred?” she asked tentatively, once the girls had turned back to their Exploding Snap game, still keeping one eye on the window in case of further funny business. “Where did you actually get the money?”

“You don’t believe I took out Bagman?”  
“I don’t believe you’d have been able to keep it to yourself,” she corrected him. If she had a Knut for every time the twins had slagged off Ludo Bagman this year, she’d have been able to give them the start-up loan herself. If they’d got back their winnings from the World Cup all these months later, there was no way Fred would have let it go.

He pulled away from her slightly, bracing himself. “Harry pulled us aside when we got on the train.”

Sophie’s mouth hung open in shock. “He didn’t give you –”

“Yeah.” He raked a hand through his hair, unusually nervous. “Said he’d be quite happy to see the back of it. He’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for Triwizard championship.”

“And he’s sure he wants us to have it?” Because she didn’t think she could give it back now. In the past few minutes alone, she’d already dreamt up possible display stands, interior design moodboards, the best filing system known to man. She could hardly put those plans into action with just her two-hundred sickle emergency fund.

“He’s sure.”  
“Still. You might treat it with a little less reckless abandon,” she told him, when the galleon he tried to toss expertly into the air slipped through his fingers and skittered onto the floor. “Didn’t he give you a bag or something?”

“Kincaid,” he admonished, looking at her like _she_ was the silly one. “I’m hardly about to lug around a thousand galleons in loose change, am I? Where would I even put it?”  
“Just answer the question,” she demanded, dismissing the mental image she’d had of him secreting the coins in the turn-ups of his jeans or in lieu the buttons on his jacket.

“George has it. We’ve buried it under loads of textbooks so Ron doesn’t think to look.”

She snorted despite herself. “So why’ve you got all those coins in your pocket?”

“That’s easy,” he said with a lazy grin. “Wanted to impress you. You’re with a rich man now, Kincaid.”

She scoffed, leaned her head against his shoulder as they watched the countryside zip past. A thousand galleons. More money than she’d ever seen in her whole life, chucked in with the twins’ dirty laundry. They’d have to spend the summer swotting up on what it meant to run a business. She wasn’t entirely certain what a down payment meant, and they’d have to work out who they were paying rent to each month (and butter them up so they’d ignore the noise complaints). She hoped to Merlin that some insurance company would be foolhardy enough to take them on, in spite of just how many explosive devices were going to be produced and sold under one roof.

“I’m going to miss watching you think,” said Fred suddenly. He stroked one long finger between her eyebrows. “You get this little pucker in your forehead right there.”

“I’ll send you photos,” she said flippantly, but it felt like a fist had grabbed hold of her stomach all of a sudden. It was going to be so long before she saw him again. “You will write, won’t you?” she asked. “Proper letters, not just _wish you were here, love Fred_?”

“I’ve been training up a fleet of owls for exactly this purpose,” he promised, kissing her between the eyebrows (he was right about that pucker, then). “So you don’t get withdrawals.”

In years to come, Sophie would realise that those past two weeks had been the turning point; the moment her childhood had ended and she’d walked into something far darker. Although she couldn’t fully appreciate it at the time, she’d felt it in the way her breath had caught leaving Hogwarts; once the safest place in the world, now shrouded in danger and uncertainty. But even while she was reeling from the year gone by – all it had given her, all it had taken away – she had a dream now. A few, actually. Setting up the best joke shop the world had ever seen. Tracking down Hestia Jones from the _Prophet_ and writing something, anything, that would catch her eye. And taking Fred up to Craig Castle. Watching him charm the pants off everyone he met.

“I’ll be up before you know it.”

“August 12,” she said automatically. The weekend after her OWL results were due. Fred’s visit to her ancestral homeland was either going to be a reward for a job well done, or a final farewell before she disappeared from the public eye forever.

“That’s right.” He put his arms round her waist, leaned his chin on her shoulder as they basked in the sunlight together. “And remember, if you don’t get all O’s, I won’t come up.”

Unfortunately for him, Fred was in the perfect position to receive a swift elbow to the ribs. “Blimey, Kincaid,” he said, still laughing though winded, “so sensitive these days.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” she told him. She glanced up, ready to be hit by some witty reply. But Fred just looked at her. Gave her one of those smiles that threatened to make the sun obsolete.

“Yeah. I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no words. I feel like I'm giving a speech at an awards show where I am woefully unprepared to do so. Fortunately, I only have one group of people to thank at this imaginary awards show, and that's all of you who've been reading! Writing this fic, and receiving such incredible feedback, has been the greatest act of self-care I could have given myself this summer. Times are tough; falling back into things we know and love, like HP, has provided much-needed escapism. It's honestly changed my day-to-day life (I found myself on the verge of saying 'I swear to Merlin' in an argument today, which shows just how sucked in I've become) and I'm thankful for it.
> 
> To shamelessly self-promote (in my defence, you have chosen to read over 60k words of my writing so far, so you probably don't HATE it), I expect to start posting the next instalment of Fred and Sophie's story by Christmas 2020. 'Sign of the Times' is going to tackle OOTP and HBP, and you know what that means - humanising Marietta, Cho, Fleur, and every other woman JKR decided deserved dust. Cho Chang Defence League, hold onto your hats - it's going to be a wild ride. In the meantime, I'm off to uni for the first time ever, which will be a wild ride in itself.
> 
> Until then, stay safe and keep smiling. Thank you so, so much for reading this far and I hope you stay tuned! xx


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